Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic

This is the first book to place the self-fashioning of mixed-race individuals in the context of a Black Atlantic. Drawing on a wide range of sources and a diverse cast of characters – from the diaries, letters, novels and plays of femme fatales in Congo and the United States to the advertisements, dissertations, oral histories and political speeches of Black Power activists in Canada and the United Kingdom – it gives particular attention to the construction of mixed-race femininity and masculinity during the twentieth century. Its broad scope and historical approach provides readers with a timely rejoinder to academics, artists, journalists and politicians who only use the mixed-race label to depict prophets or delinquents as "new" national icons for the twenty-first century.

'Daniel McNeil illuminates harrowing account and insidious perceptions of mixed-race that exist across Canada, America and Britain.''...fruitful in its exploration of how mixed-race has been and is perceived as a battlefield, without tip-toeing around sensitive issues.''This book will be of primary relevance to academics and students who require a refreshing critical alternative to the lingering racist perceptions of the mixing of races, as well as the multiculturalist normalisation and the "post-racial" consumption of mixed-race identity.'-Zaki Nahaboo, Runnymede Bulletin, Issue 365

Daniel McNeil is a Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Newcastle University and an Honorary Fellow of the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation.