Cultural Trauma Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity

In this book, Ron Eyerman explores the formation of the African-American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an institution or as personal experience, but as collective memory: a pervasive remembrance that grounded a people's sense of itself. Combining a broad narrative sweep with more detailed studies of important events and individuals, Eyerman reaches from Emancipation through the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, the New Deal and the Second World War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond. He offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity-formation which have a truly universal significance, as well as providing a compelling account of the birth of African-American identity. Anyone interested in questions of assimilation, multiculturalism and postcolonialism will find this book indispensable.

1. Cultural trauma and collective memory; 2. Remembering and forgetting; 3. Out of Africa; 4. The black public sphere and the heritage of slavery; 5. Memory and representation; 6. Civil rights and black nationalism; References; Index.

In this book, Ron Eyerman explores the formation of the African-American identity through the cultural trauma of slavery. He offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity-formation which have a truly universal significance, as well as providing a compelling account of the birth of African-American identity.

Ronald Eyerman is the holder of the Segerstedt Chair of Sociology, and a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University (1900–2000). His recent publications include Music and Social Movements (Cambridge, 1998).