Black Magic

Krin Gabbard is a professor of comparative literature and English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the author most recently of Jammin' at the Margins: Jazz and American Culture.

• Black magic, disembodied. Marlon Brando's jazz acting and the obsolescence of blackface ; Borrowing Black masculinity: Dirty Harry finds his gentle side ; Passing tones: The talented Mr. Ripley and PleasantvilleServing the white audience. The racial displacements of Ransom and Fargo ; Black angels in America : millennial solutions to the "race problem"Unrepresentable subjects. Evidence : Thelonious Monk's challenge to jazz history ; Revenge of the Nerds : representing the White male collector of Black musicBlack magic, inverted. Robert Altman's jazz history lesson ; Spike Lee meets Aaron Copland

Gabbard's book is a joy to read, a really fine, original piece of work. He detects a significant pattern in contemporary American cinema, and with great critical insight and clear explanations, he traces its themes and variations. - Michael Jarrett (author of Sound Tracks: A Musical ABC) This is a clearly written, well-argued book . . . both readable and intellectually rigorous. The author's case that white appropriation of African American culture has shifted from obvious and literal forms to the disembodiment of black expressions is astutely demonstrated by his exploration of the intersection of jazz and the narratives of popular commercial films.Ed Guerrero, Cinema Studies, New York University - Ed Guerrero (Cinema Studies, New York University) "Gabbard's rcih book reveals that cultural critics have only begun to fathom the sublime and the ridiculous extent of racial appropriations of black culture in white American films. As this book shows, it is both 'magical' and appalling.Linda Williams, author of Playing the Race Card:Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson - Linda Williams (author of Playing the Race Card:Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson)