283 records matched your query       

Author:

Jefferson, Margo, 1947- author.

Title:

Constructing a nervous system : a memoir / Margo Jefferson.

Edition:

First edition.

Publisher:

Pantheon Books,

Copyright Date:

2022

Description:

197 pages : illustration ; 20 cm

Subject:

Jefferson, Margo,--1947-
African American women--Biography.
African American women critics--Biography.
African Americans--Race identity.
African Americans--Intellectual life.
African Americans--Social life and customs.
United States--History--History--Anecdotes.
United States--Social life and customs--Anecdotes.
Autobiographies.
Anecdotes.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-195).

Summary:

"Stunning for her daring originality, the author of Negroland gives us what she calls "a temperamental autobiography," comprised of visceral, intimate fragments that fuse criticism and memoir. Margo Jefferson constructs a nervous system with pieces of different lengths and tone, conjoining arts writing (poem, song, performance) with life writing (history, psychology). The book's structure is determined by signal moments of her life, those that trouble her as well as those that thrill and restore. In this nervous system: The sounds of a black spinning disc of a 1950's jazz LP as intimate and instructive as a parent's voice. The muscles and movements of a ballerina, spliced with those of an Olympic runner: template for what a female body could be. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Topsy finds her way into the art of Kara Walker and the songs of Cécile McLorin Salvant. Bing Crosby and Ike Turner become alter egos. W.E.B. DuBois and George Eliot meet illicitly, as he appropriates lines from her story "The Hidden Veil" to write his famous "behind the veil" passages in The Souls of Black Folk. The words of multiple others (writers, singers, film characters, friends, family) act as prompts and as dialogue. The fragments of this brilliant book, while not neglecting family, race, and class, are informed by a kind of aesthetic drive: longing, ecstasy, or even acute ambivalence. Constructing a nervous system is Jefferson's relentlessly galvanizing mis en scene for unconventional storytelling as well as a platform for unexpected dramatis personae"-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

152474817X
9781524748173

OCLC:

(OCoLC)1252763617

LCCN:

2021029571

Locations:

USUX851 -- Iowa State University - Parks Library (Ames)

BOPG851 -- Ames Public Library (Ames)

GBPF771 -- Ankeny Kirkendall Public Library (Ankeny)

TCPG826 -- Bettendorf Public Library Information Center (Bettendorf)

YAPC771 -- Bondurant Community Library (Bondurant)

UNUX074 -- University of Northern Iowa - Rod Library (Cedar Falls)

TYPH572 -- Cedar Rapids Public Library (Cedar Rapids)

XXPH787 -- Council Bluffs Public Library (Council Bluffs)

TDPH826 -- Davenport Public Library (Davenport)

VXPE964 -- Decorah Public Library (Decorah)

BAPH771 -- Des Moines Public Library (Des Moines)

ALPE516 -- Fairfield Public Library (Fairfield)

CMPE792 -- Drake Community Library (Grinnell)

CAPH522 -- Iowa City Public Library (Iowa City)

KAPF566 -- Keokuk Public Library (Keokuk)

LAPH975 -- Sioux City Public Library (Sioux City)

GDPF771 -- Urbandale Public Library (Urbandale)

SMPE094 -- Waverly Public Library (Waverly)