Millennial Style: The Politics of Experiment in Contemporary African Diasporic Culture

In Millennial Style, Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman examines recent experiments in black expressive culture that arise from ruin, such as political terror and social abjection. She outlines four widely employed modes in contemporary African diasporic cultural production: Black Grotesquerie, Hollowed Blackness, Black Cacophony, and the Black Ecstatic, and considers work by cultural practitioners such as Wangechi Mutu, Marci Blackman, Alexandria Smith, Colson Whitehead, Toni Morrison, Harmony Holiday, and Essex Hemphill. The book theorizes contemporary black art as the holding of black mortal and material resources against social death, the fashioning of relational ethics, and exuberant black world-building in ruinous times.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 184 pages
Publication date: 16 February 2024
Publisher: Duke University Press

In Millennial Style, Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman delves into recent experiments in black expressive culture, emerging from the ruins of political terror and social abjection that persistently threaten black lives. While earlier black writers and artists have employed realist modes of expression to represent racial harm and envision remedial measures, the black avant-garde of today showcases more experimental approaches. Abdur-Rahman identifies four widely employed modes in contemporary African diasporic cultural production: Black Grotesquerie, Hollowed Blackness, Black Cacophony, and the Black Ecstatic. Drawing upon black feminist and black radical thought, she examines the work of cultural practitioners such as Wangechi Mutu, Marci Blackman, Alexandria Smith, Colson Whitehead, Toni Morrison, Harmony Holiday, and Essex Hemphill. Millennial Style theorizes contemporary black art as a means of safeguarding black mortal and material resources against the adversities of social death, fostering relational ethics, and flourishing black world-building amidst ruinous times.

In Millennial Style, Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman delves into recent experiments in black expressive culture, emerging from the ruins of political terror and social abjection that persistently threaten black lives. While earlier black writers and artists have employed realist modes of expression to represent racial harm and envision remedial measures, the black avant-garde of today showcases more experimental approaches. Abdur-Rahman identifies four widely employed modes in contemporary African diasporic cultural production: Black Grotesquerie, Hollowed Blackness, Black Cacophony, and the Black Ecstatic. Drawing upon black feminist and black radical thought, she examines the work of cultural practitioners such as Wangechi Mutu, Marci Blackman, Alexandria Smith, Colson Whitehead, Toni Morrison, Harmony Holiday, and Essex Hemphill. Millennial Style theorizes contemporary black art as a means of safeguarding black mortal and material resources against the adversities of social death, fostering relational ethics, and flourishing black world-building amidst ruinous times.

Weight: 286g
Dimension: 152 x 229 x 13 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478030201