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Scenes of Instruction: A Memoir
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Lessons in Autobiography, Gender, and Race
 Scenes of Instruction: A Memoir
Michael Awkward , and Michael Awkward
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

African-American & BlackAfrican-American & Black | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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African-American StudiesAfrican-American Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0822324024

Book Description

Scenes of Instruction is the memoir of noted scholar of African American literature Michael Awkward. Structured around the commencement ceremonies that marked his graduations from various schools, it presents Awkward’s coming-of-age as a bookish black male in the projects of 1970s Philadelphia. His relationships with his family and peers, their struggles with poverty and addiction, and his eventual move from underfunded urban schools to a prestigious private school all become parts of a memorable script.
With a recurring focus on how his mother’s tragic weaknesses and her compelling strengths affected his development, Awkward intersperses the chronologically arranged autobiographical sections with ruminations on his own interests in literary and cultural criticism. As a male scholar who has come under fire for describing himself as a feminist critic, he reflects on such issues as identity politics and the politics of academia, affirmative action, and the Million Man March.
By connecting his personal experiences with larger political, cultural, and professional questions, Awkward uses his life as a palette on which to blend equations of race and reading, urbanity and mutilation, alcoholism, pain, gender, learning, sex, literature, and love.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Lessons in Autobiography, Gender, and Race.......2000-11-03

Michael Awkward's memoir is instructive--in numerous ways: it contains insights on how to write memoirs, especially if one is a scholar/critical theorist; it instructs us on the intersection of race and gender (Awkward is a self-described black male feminist--raised in Philadelphia); and it shows us how we might bring postmodern forms of analysis to the stories we have lived. The central "other" in Awkward's book is his mother. With great insight, he shares the pain of her life, and his related pain, with the reader. This book is a powerful gift; I have learned much from it.
Scenes of Instruction A Memoir
Average customer rating: Not rated
    		Scenes of Instruction A Memoir
    Michael Awkward
    Manufacturer: Duke U.P.
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover
    ASIN: B000ICOACE

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