Daphne A. Brooks is Professor of African American Studies, Theater Studies, and American Studies at Yale University. She is the author of Jeff Buckley’s Grace.

• Acknowledgements ix1. Our Bodies, Our/Selves 14Racial Phantasmagoria and Cultural Struggle 2. The Escape Artist 66Henry Box Brown, Black Abolitionist Performance, and Moving Panoramas of Slavery 3. “The Deeds Done in My Body” 131Performance, Black(ened) Women, and Adah Isaacs Menken in the Racial Imaginary 4. Alien/Nation 207Re-Imagining the Black Body (Politic) in Williams and Walker’s In Dahomey 5. Divas and Diasporic Consciousness 281Song, Dance, and New Negro Womanhood in the Veil Epilogue 343Theatre, Black Women, and Change Notes 349Bibliography 417Index 455

“Daphne A. Brooks has developed a truly wonderful way of matching up odd couples, such as Ada Isaacs Menken and Sojourner Truth, and finding the kinship marks of ‘overlapping diasporas’ in their improbable but richly informative union.”-Joseph Roach, author of Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance “Daphne A. Brooks is a brilliant, creative, and original thinker. Because Brooks so adeptly crosses the disciplinary boundaries of fields as diverse as performance studies, nineteenth-century American literature, and black studies, Bodies in Dissent is an extraordinary model of interdisciplinary scholarship. Brooks’s original archival work coupled with her engagement with recent scholarship in cultural studies and studies of the black Atlantic provides us with a beautifully written exploration and theory of black performance practices.”-Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday “Most powerful and original in [Brooks’s] study is her emphasis on Victorian spectacular culture: spiritualism, mesmerism and magic, and its influence on expressive and literary forms. Brooks’ wide-ranging choice of texts and subjects and her unexpected juxtapositions give her analysis a blessedly nonlinear rhythm.” - Jayna Brown (TDR: The Drama Review) “Vividly detailed and rewarding in its complexity, Bodies in Dissent travels between the cultural landscape of the antebellum and post-Reconstruction United States and the British stage to make a strong case for African American spectacle as a means of achieving freedom in the transatlantic world.” - Lori Harrison-Kahan (Modern Drama)

Daphne A. Brooks is Professor of African American Studies, Theater Studies, and American Studies at Yale University. She is the author of Jeff Buckley’s Grace.

• Acknowledgements ix1. Our Bodies, Our/Selves 14Racial Phantasmagoria and Cultural Struggle 2. The Escape Artist 66Henry Box Brown, Black Abolitionist Performance, and Moving Panoramas of Slavery 3. “The Deeds Done in My Body” 131Performance, Black(ened) Women, and Adah Isaacs Menken in the Racial Imaginary 4. Alien/Nation 207Re-Imagining the Black Body (Politic) in Williams and Walker’s In Dahomey 5. Divas and Diasporic Consciousness 281Song, Dance, and New Negro Womanhood in the Veil Epilogue 343Theatre, Black Women, and Change Notes 349Bibliography 417Index 455

“Daphne A. Brooks has developed a truly wonderful way of matching up odd couples, such as Ada Isaacs Menken and Sojourner Truth, and finding the kinship marks of ‘overlapping diasporas’ in their improbable but richly informative union.”-Joseph Roach, author of Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance “Daphne A. Brooks is a brilliant, creative, and original thinker. Because Brooks so adeptly crosses the disciplinary boundaries of fields as diverse as performance studies, nineteenth-century American literature, and black studies, Bodies in Dissent is an extraordinary model of interdisciplinary scholarship. Brooks’s original archival work coupled with her engagement with recent scholarship in cultural studies and studies of the black Atlantic provides us with a beautifully written exploration and theory of black performance practices.”-Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday “Most powerful and original in [Brooks’s] study is her emphasis on Victorian spectacular culture: spiritualism, mesmerism and magic, and its influence on expressive and literary forms. Brooks’ wide-ranging choice of texts and subjects and her unexpected juxtapositions give her analysis a blessedly nonlinear rhythm.” - Jayna Brown (TDR: The Drama Review) “Vividly detailed and rewarding in its complexity, Bodies in Dissent travels between the cultural landscape of the antebellum and post-Reconstruction United States and the British stage to make a strong case for African American spectacle as a means of achieving freedom in the transatlantic world.” - Lori Harrison-Kahan (Modern Drama)

Daphne A. Brooks is Professor of African American Studies, Theater Studies, and American Studies at Yale University. She is the author of Jeff Buckley’s Grace.

• Acknowledgements ix1. Our Bodies, Our/Selves 14Racial Phantasmagoria and Cultural Struggle 2. The Escape Artist 66Henry Box Brown, Black Abolitionist Performance, and Moving Panoramas of Slavery 3. “The Deeds Done in My Body” 131Performance, Black(ened) Women, and Adah Isaacs Menken in the Racial Imaginary 4. Alien/Nation 207Re-Imagining the Black Body (Politic) in Williams and Walker’s In Dahomey 5. Divas and Diasporic Consciousness 281Song, Dance, and New Negro Womanhood in the Veil Epilogue 343Theatre, Black Women, and Change Notes 349Bibliography 417Index 455

“Daphne A. Brooks has developed a truly wonderful way of matching up odd couples, such as Ada Isaacs Menken and Sojourner Truth, and finding the kinship marks of ‘overlapping diasporas’ in their improbable but richly informative union.”-Joseph Roach, author of Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance “Daphne A. Brooks is a brilliant, creative, and original thinker. Because Brooks so adeptly crosses the disciplinary boundaries of fields as diverse as performance studies, nineteenth-century American literature, and black studies, Bodies in Dissent is an extraordinary model of interdisciplinary scholarship. Brooks’s original archival work coupled with her engagement with recent scholarship in cultural studies and studies of the black Atlantic provides us with a beautifully written exploration and theory of black performance practices.”-Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday “Most powerful and original in [Brooks’s] study is her emphasis on Victorian spectacular culture: spiritualism, mesmerism and magic, and its influence on expressive and literary forms. Brooks’ wide-ranging choice of texts and subjects and her unexpected juxtapositions give her analysis a blessedly nonlinear rhythm.” - Jayna Brown (TDR: The Drama Review) “Vividly detailed and rewarding in its complexity, Bodies in Dissent travels between the cultural landscape of the antebellum and post-Reconstruction United States and the British stage to make a strong case for African American spectacle as a means of achieving freedom in the transatlantic world.” - Lori Harrison-Kahan (Modern Drama)