The Melancholy of Race

The Melancholy of Race argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity. Anne A. Cheng proposes that racial identification is itself already a melancholy act - a social category that is imaginatively supported through a dynamic loss and compensation, by which the racial other is at once rejected and retained, denigrated and idealized. Drawing upon history, literature and theatre - the book ranges from Rodgers and Hammerstein to David Henry Whang, Brown v. Board of Education to Anna Deveare Smith, Ralph Ellison to Maxine Hong Kingston - Cheng demonstrates that racial melancholia permeates our fantasies of citizenship, assimilation and social health. A provocative look at a timely cultural dilemma, this study is essential reading for anyone interested in race studies, critical theory or psychoanalysis.