Racialized Politics of Desire in Personal Ads

Maureen Daly Goggin is professor of rhetoric and Neal A. Lester is professor of English, both at Arizona State University.

• Chapter 1 PrefaceChapter 2 Introduction. Trapped in Lines and Language: Distorted Selves in Personal AdsChapter 3 Chapter 1. "EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!" Constructions of Heterosexual Black Male Identities in the PersonalsChapter 4 Chapter 2. In Living Color: Politics of Desire in Heterosexual Interracial Black/White Personal AdsChapter 5 Chapter 3. Black Gay Men Seeking Black Gay Men: Cultural and Historical ImplicationsChapter 6 Chapter 4. Personal Ads and the Intersection of Race and Same-Sex Male AttractionChapter 7 Chapter 5. SBF Seeks Miss Afrekete: Authentic Lesbians and Same-Sex Desire in the PersonalsChapter 8 Chapter 6. Ethnic Chasers, Auntie Toms, and E(gal)itarians: Black Females Seeking and Being Sought by White FemalesChapter 9 Chapter 7. "The 21st Century Option to Meet and Socialize": Discursive Conventions of Black Heterosexual Male Identities in Match.comChapter 10 Chapter 8. Afterword

Racialized Politics of Desire in Personal Ads, edited by Neal A. Lester and Maureen Daly Goggin, provides critical insights into how African Americans influence and are influenced by American popular culture during the computer age. Using the oftenraw, radical, bold, unabashed, and edgy language of these ads contributors move this medium, through carefully written and well-researched scholarly articles beyond what might be perceived as not so veiled pornography to study, deconstruct, and assess thedeeper questions and issues related to race, class and gender problematize in these narratives. Significantly, these scholars break the taboo and silence often associated with the spectrum of black sexuality, sexual preference and sexual orientation, moving these topics beyond reductive stereotypes and essentialism to a more complex, dynamic an anti-essentialist view and level. Racialized Politics of Desire in Personal Ads crosses several boundaries to challenges the popularly held belief that African American contributions to contemporary American popular culture is limited to rap and hip hop. Each essays bears witness to the complexity of black life in our post modern world.