ABSTRACT
The title of Kara Walker's silhouette installation The Battle of Atlanta: Being the Narrative of a Negress in the Flames of Desire—A Reconstruction evokes a Civil War setting—one that is reinforced in this detail by the bayonet-tipped muskets, and the juxtaposition of a white uniformed man and a black woman in a frayed, ankle-length skirt. The romance novel is a subject of sustained creative and critical reflection in Walker's oeuvre. The genre has inspired Walker to write a number of creative texts, several of which are gathered in the exhibition catalog and artist's book published on the occasion of her 1997 Renaissance Society exhibition at the University of Chicago. This chapter argues that Walker's shadow romances, aimed ostensibly at critiquing the romance genre, nevertheless have a revolutionary potential similar to that identified by literary scholars working on interracial love plots.
