ABSTRACT

Welcome to the Jungle brings a black British perspective to the critical reading of a wide range of cultural texts, events and experiences arising from volatile transformations in the politics of ethnicity, sexuality and "race" during the 1980s. The ten essays collected here examine new forms of cultural expression in black film, photography and visual art exerging with a new generation of black British artists, and interprets this prolific creativity within a sociological framework that reveals fresh perspectives on the bewildering complexity of identity and diversity in an era of postmodernity. Kobena Mercer documents a wealth of insights opened up by the overlapping of Asian, African and Caribbean cultures that constitute Black Britain as a unique domain of diaspora.

chapter |31 pages

Introduction

Black Britain and the Cultural Politics of Diaspora

chapter 1|19 pages

Monster Metaphors

Notes on Michael Jackson's Thriller

chapter 2|16 pages

Diaspora Culture and the Dialogic Imagination

The Aesthetics of Black Independent Film in Britain

chapter 3|28 pages

Recoding Narratives of Race and Nation

chapter 4|34 pages

Black Hair/Style Politics

chapter 6|50 pages

Reading Racial Fetishism

The Photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe

chapter 7|12 pages

Dark & Lovely

Black Gay Image-Making

chapter 8|26 pages

Black Art and the Burden of Representation

chapter 9|27 pages

Welcome to the Jungle

Identity and Diversity in Postmodern Politics

chapter 10|22 pages

“1968”

Periodizing Politics and Identity