Experiments in Exile: C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness

Comparing radical experiments undertaken by Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James and Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica, Experiments in Exile charts their common desire to reconceive citizenship. Laura Harris shows how James and Oiticica gravitate toward and attempt to relay the ongoing renewal of dissident, dissonant social forms that constitute what she calls "the aesthetic sociality of blackness," in the barrack-yards of Port-of-Spain and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the assembly lines of Detroit and the streets of the New York, ultimately challenging rather than rehabilitating normative conceptions of citizens and polities as well as authors and artworks.

Author: Laura Harris
Publisher: American Literatures Initiative
Published: 08/07/2018
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9780823279791
ISBN10: 0823279790
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Caribbean & Latin American
- Art | Caribbean & Latin American
- Social Science | Human Geography

About the Author
Laura Harris is Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Art and Public Policy at New York University.