Veil and Vow
Marriage Matters in Contemporary African American Culture
By Aneeka Ayanna Henderson
240 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 16 color plates, 16 halftones, notes, bibl., index
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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-5176-7
Published: February 2020 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-5175-0
Published: February 2020 -
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-5765-1
Published: January 2020 -
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-5177-4
Published: January 2020
Gender and American Culture
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- Paperback $29.95
- Hardcover $90.00
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Awards & distinctions
Finalist, 2021 Outstanding First Book Prize, Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora
About the Author
Aneeka Ayanna Henderson is associate professor of American Studies at Amherst College.
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Reviews
âAn interdisciplinary assessment of the intersections of public policy with shifting ideals regarding race, intimacy, marriage, and gender within African American fiction, film, and music culture. . . . This is a dense, creative, and engaging volume.â--CHOICE
âIt is an academic book, but it isnât unduly burdened by jargon. The chapters are organized around Black popular cultureâmovies like The Best Man, and song lyrics like those from Sweet Honey in the Rock and Anita Baker. That makes it more accessible than it could have been in another writerâs hands.â â Tressie McMillan Cottom
âThis is fascinating reading. Veil and Vow perfectly captures how fairy-tale aspirations of wedlock intersect with the supposed bootstrap mobility of the âAmerican Dream,â undergirding angst about the marriage market in crisis. Hendersonâs generative analysis wrestles with a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction texts, media platforms, and popular culture forms. This book makes major interventions in gender, sexuality, and African American studies, as well as the study of contemporary politics and culture.â--Tera W. Hunter, author of Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century
âIn this era when the term âmarriage equalityâ signals political possibilities for some, Aneeka Hendersonâs brilliant Veil and Vow recalls the historical and contemporary challenges that matrimony has posed for Black women--often on the fringes of full citizenship and safety--and their ingenuity in claiming an equality that worked for them.â--Mark Anthony Neal, author of Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities
"Veil and Vow models interdisciplinary scholarship at its finest as it analyzes several modes of black cultural expressivity--from literature, to film, to music--to investigate how ideas about black people's intimate relations continue to shape public policy in the postâcivil rights era."--Robert J. Patterson, author of Destructive Desires: Rhythm and Blues Culture and the Politics of Racial Equality
âThe denial of Black humanity has long been bound up with questions about Black peopleâs ability to love. Veil and Vow affirms the cultural consistency of Black love and marriage. There is simply no other book on the subject that has the interdisciplinary and popular culture reach of this one. Aneeka Henderson refutes, enlightens and provokes. Read her book!â--Noliwe Rooks, author of Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education