Sotiropoulos has written an exciting original piece of work that will prompt scholars to re-think what they knew about African American performers during the "nadir." She convincingly asserts that these artists played into and used the racist stereotypes that were being promulgated as a way of gaining space in the public arena. In using those stereotypes the African American performers were in a dialogue with their African American audiences about issues of personhood as well as critiquing the stereotype themselves. This is an important book.
Kathy Peiss
In Staging Race, Karen Sotiropoulos casts the politics of turn-of-the-century African-American entertainment in a new light. Tracing such figures as Bert Williams, Aida Overton Walker, and James Reese Europe, she reveals how black entertainers pushed against the minstrel stereotypes they were expected to perform, inserting social and political themes to speak directly to black audiences and over the heads of whites. They created performers' organizations, established a black-owned sheet music company, and eventually broke onto the Broadway stage. Meticulous in its research, powerfully argued, and elegantly written, this is a first-rate work of scholarship. --(Kathy Peiss, University of Pennsylvania)
Robin D. G
Karen Sotiropoulos tells the riveting story of a group of black intellectuals who challenged social Darwinism, imperialism, segregation and promoted a discourse of black nation-building. Brilliantly written and conceived, Staging Race will force us all to rethink early 20th century black musical theater, as well as black political thought during the so-called "nadir" of African American history. --(Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination)
Kenneth Goings
Sotiropoulos has written an exciting original piece of work that will prompt scholars to re-think what they knew about African American performers during the "nadir." She convincingly asserts that these artists played into and used the racist stereotypes that were being promulgated as a way of gaining space in the public arena. In using those stereotypes the African American performers were in a dialogue with their African American audiences about issues of personhood as well as critiquing the stereotype themselves. This is an important book. --(Kenneth Goings, Ohio State University)
Robin D. G. Kelley
Karen Sotiropoulos tells the riveting story of a group of black intellectuals who challenged social Darwinism, imperialism, segregation and promoted a discourse of black nation-building. Brilliantly written and conceived, Staging Race will force us all to rethink early 20th century black musical theater, as well as black political thought during the so-called "nadir" of African American history.
— Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
