Elizabeth Abel is Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author and editor of several books, including Writing and Sexual Difference, Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis, and (with Barbara Christian and Helene Moglen) Female Subjects in Black and White (UC Press).

• Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Jim Crow's Cultural Turns Part I. Inscriptions 1. American Graffiti: The Social Life of Jim Crow Signs 2. The Signs of Race in the Language of Photography 3. Cultural Memory and the Conditions of Visibility: The Circulation of Jim Crow Photographs Part II. Race and Space 4. Restroom Doors and Drinking Fountains: Perspective, Mobility, and the Fluid Grounds of Race and Gender 5. The Eyeball and the Wall: Eating, Seeing, and the Nation Part III. Still and Motion Pictures 6. Double Take: Photography, Cinema, and the Segregated Theater 7. Upside Down and Inside Out: Camera Work, Spectatorship, and the Chronotope of the Colored Balcony Part IV. Dismantling Jim Crow 8. Remaking Racial Signs: Activism and Photography in the Theater of the Sit-Ins Afterword: Contemporary Turns Notes Select Bibliography Index

"An impressive study of the visual politics of compulsory race segregation in the United States." African American Review "Abel complements stunning photos of a sometimes forgotten world - where "White Only" and "Colored Only" signs were a disturbing legal and social reality - with an in-depth scholarly examination." San Francisco Chronicle "A rich contribution to American studies, Signs of the Times reanimates the critical conversation about racial formation by turning away from physiological signs and turning to literal ones." Melus "Abel's accomplishment is formidable, and all students of the American past owe her a tremendous debt for her careful work in creating this paradoxically striking 'archive of the ordinary'." Left History "Fine and thoughtful." New Books In History "Engaging and intellectually stimulating... [Abel] has done invaluable work." -- Ulrich Adelt, University of Wyoming American Studies

Elizabeth Abel is Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author and editor of several books, including Writing and Sexual Difference, Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis, and (with Barbara Christian and Helene Moglen) Female Subjects in Black and White (UC Press).

• Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Jim Crow's Cultural Turns Part I. Inscriptions 1. American Graffiti: The Social Life of Jim Crow Signs 2. The Signs of Race in the Language of Photography 3. Cultural Memory and the Conditions of Visibility: The Circulation of Jim Crow Photographs Part II. Race and Space 4. Restroom Doors and Drinking Fountains: Perspective, Mobility, and the Fluid Grounds of Race and Gender 5. The Eyeball and the Wall: Eating, Seeing, and the Nation Part III. Still and Motion Pictures 6. Double Take: Photography, Cinema, and the Segregated Theater 7. Upside Down and Inside Out: Camera Work, Spectatorship, and the Chronotope of the Colored Balcony Part IV. Dismantling Jim Crow 8. Remaking Racial Signs: Activism and Photography in the Theater of the Sit-Ins Afterword: Contemporary Turns Notes Select Bibliography Index

"An impressive study of the visual politics of compulsory race segregation in the United States." African American Review "Abel complements stunning photos of a sometimes forgotten world - where "White Only" and "Colored Only" signs were a disturbing legal and social reality - with an in-depth scholarly examination." San Francisco Chronicle "A rich contribution to American studies, Signs of the Times reanimates the critical conversation about racial formation by turning away from physiological signs and turning to literal ones." Melus "Abel's accomplishment is formidable, and all students of the American past owe her a tremendous debt for her careful work in creating this paradoxically striking 'archive of the ordinary'." Left History "Fine and thoughtful." New Books In History "Engaging and intellectually stimulating... [Abel] has done invaluable work." -- Ulrich Adelt, University of Wyoming American Studies

Elizabeth Abel is Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author and editor of several books, including Writing and Sexual Difference, Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis, and (with Barbara Christian and Helene Moglen) Female Subjects in Black and White (UC Press).

• Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Jim Crow's Cultural Turns Part I. Inscriptions 1. American Graffiti: The Social Life of Jim Crow Signs 2. The Signs of Race in the Language of Photography 3. Cultural Memory and the Conditions of Visibility: The Circulation of Jim Crow Photographs Part II. Race and Space 4. Restroom Doors and Drinking Fountains: Perspective, Mobility, and the Fluid Grounds of Race and Gender 5. The Eyeball and the Wall: Eating, Seeing, and the Nation Part III. Still and Motion Pictures 6. Double Take: Photography, Cinema, and the Segregated Theater 7. Upside Down and Inside Out: Camera Work, Spectatorship, and the Chronotope of the Colored Balcony Part IV. Dismantling Jim Crow 8. Remaking Racial Signs: Activism and Photography in the Theater of the Sit-Ins Afterword: Contemporary Turns Notes Select Bibliography Index

"An impressive study of the visual politics of compulsory race segregation in the United States." African American Review "Abel complements stunning photos of a sometimes forgotten world - where "White Only" and "Colored Only" signs were a disturbing legal and social reality - with an in-depth scholarly examination." San Francisco Chronicle "A rich contribution to American studies, Signs of the Times reanimates the critical conversation about racial formation by turning away from physiological signs and turning to literal ones." Melus "Abel's accomplishment is formidable, and all students of the American past owe her a tremendous debt for her careful work in creating this paradoxically striking 'archive of the ordinary'." Left History "Fine and thoughtful." New Books In History "Engaging and intellectually stimulating... [Abel] has done invaluable work." -- Ulrich Adelt, University of Wyoming American Studies