Blacktino Queer Performance
E. Patrick Johnson is Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity, also published by Duke University Press.
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera is Associate Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University and the author of Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics.
E. Patrick Johnson is Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity, also published by Duke University Press.
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera is Associate Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University and the author of Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics.
Part III
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Published:June 2016
In this chapter, Jennifer DeVere Brody situates E. Patrick Johnson’s play Strange Fruit within a critical genealogy of black gay image-making. Brody asserts that Johnson’s artistic work, along with that of other black queer men, facilitated the emergence of black queer studies. Brody then analyzes selected scenes from Strange Fruit to argue that Johnson employs performance studies sensibilities to destabilize essentialist notions of black queer male identity.
In this chapter, Bernadette Marie Calafell interviews Strange Fruit creator E. Patrick Johnson. Johnson opens the interview by sharing that he wanted Strange Fruit to be an homage to the women in his...
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