Clare Corbould | Deakin University (original) (raw)

Books by Clare Corbould

In 2000, the United States census allowed respondents for the first time to tick a box marked “Af... more In 2000, the United States census allowed respondents for the first time to tick a box marked “African American” in the race category. The new option marked official recognition of a term that had been gaining currency for some decades. Africa has always played a role in black identity, but it was in the tumultuous period between the two world wars that black Americans first began to embrace a modern African American identity.

Following the great migration of black southerners to northern cities after World War I, the search for roots and for meaningful affiliations became subjects of debate and display in a growing black public sphere. Throwing off the legacy of slavery and segregation, black intellectuals, activists, and organizations sought a prouder past in ancient Egypt and forged links to contemporary Africa. In plays, pageants, dance, music, film, literature, and the visual arts, they aimed to give stature and solidity to the American black community through a new awareness of the African past and the international black world. Their consciousness of a dual identity anticipated the hyphenated identities of new immigrants in the years after World War II, and an emerging sense of what it means to be a modern American.

Winner, 2010 Biennial Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for First Book of History

Commended, 2010 W. K. Hancock Prize, Australian Historical Association (one of two books shortlisted)

Shortlisted, 2009 NSW Premier’s General History Prize (one of four books shortlisted)

Choice (magazine of the American Library Association), “Outstanding Academic Title,” 2009

Refereed Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Clare Corbould

Griffith Review, 2021

IN JUNE 2021, in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and a wave of simil... more IN JUNE 2021, in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and a wave of similar Australian protests-conducted in solidarity with African Americans and to draw attention to Aboriginal deaths in police custody-Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned against 'importing the things that are happening overseas to Australia'. Morrison conceded that Australia has 'issues in this space' but implied the effects of anti-Black racism in the past and present were less serious than in other nations and regions. One week later, he said during a talkback radio segment that 'there was no slavery in Australia'. The next day, Morrison apologised for the remark, saying he misspoke and meant only that there was no intention for legal slavery to exist when the colonies were established. When pressed specifically about the practice of 'blackbirding'-the coercion of South Sea Islanders into indentured labour on Queensland plantations-he responded: 'There have been all sorts of hideous practices that have taken place, and so I'm not denying any of that,' reiterating, 'Okay? I'm not denying any of that. It's all recorded.' (Our italics.) Mixed-media artist Jasmine Togo-Brisby would beg to differ. In common with artists such as Tracey Moffatt, Fiona Foley and poet Natalie Harkin, her outpouring of arresting work probes such credulous accounts of 'the archive'. Born and raised in northern NSW and Queensland, Togo-Brisby traces her ancestry to the Ambae and Espiritu Santo islands of Vanuatu. She is

African American writers, artists, historians, and activists of the interwar period expended subs... more African American writers, artists, historians, and activists of the interwar period expended substantial energy to refute a widely held idea that US slavery was relatively benign. Among black American writers, it was poets – for commercial reasons and reasons to do with genre – who took up the topic of enslavement most often. Some wrote poems about the pride they took in the survival of their forebears. Others argued, in poetry, that trauma inflicted by enslavement required them to break free of its enduring spell. A third group, including Langston Hughes, Anne Spencer, and Jessie Fauset, used poetry to call into question the norms of contemporary history writing and of rules of evidence. African American poets in this group used poetry to create a new archive of enslaved people’s experiences and narratives.

Radical History Review 132, 144-171, 2018

Race Capital? Harlem as Setting and Symbol, ed. Andrew Fearnley and Daniel Matlin (New York: Columbia University Press), 47-70, 2018

Journal of American Studies, 2018

Transition: The Magazine of Africa and the Diaspora, 2017

An account of popular responses to the 1977 miniseries Roots, based on letters sent to the Execut... more An account of popular responses to the 1977 miniseries Roots, based on letters sent to the Executive Producer, David Wolper, to author Alex Haley, and to television networks.

African American newspapers frequently ran reports and stories about Indigenous Australians and A... more African American newspapers frequently ran reports and stories about Indigenous Australians and Australia's racial governance between 1919 and 1948, except for the years during World War II when thousands of African American servicemen were stationed in Australia. The black American press was extremely critical of “White Australia.” African American newspaper writers used the phrase “White Australia” to refer both to the famed or notorious Australian immigration laws and to prevailing race relations in labor management. When they reported on Indigenous Australians, they took careful note of conditions that were akin to American slavery and its aftermath and remarked upon the similar regimes of racial governance. As far as the black American press was concerned, Indigenous Australians were one of the many nodes that comprised a worldwide alliance of colonized people; black internationalism included them, too. From 1942 to 1944, however, the press placed that alliance on hold. Newspapers instead focused on the surprisingly benign treatment they said black American troops received from white Australians. As it became clear that the Allies were likely to triumph, black American newspapers returned to criticism of “White Australia” and to an abstract bond with Aboriginal Australians, as they pressed forward with claims to universal human rights and with agitation to end all colonization as part of the worldwide return to peace.

A study of "lynching plays" written by African American women in the early twentieth century.

Harlem was never entirely a "black" neighborhood. White landlords, shopkeepers, policemen, and vi... more Harlem was never entirely a "black" neighborhood. White landlords, shopkeepers, policemen, and visitors abounded. In the 1920s and 1930s, Harlem's African American residents made it seem theirs, however, through the use of sound. What white visitors found "noisy"—whether they were excited or repelled by it—marked out the territory, as it were. Sounds ranged from special events including parades and funerals, to everyday activities such as street speaking and hanging out. This use of public space had as its analogue the formation of a black public sphere. Members of this counter-public sphere, including those associated with the Harlem Renaissance, defined themselves as aural beings, rather than as individuals oriented by sight. Debate erupted frequently within this sphere as to what was appropriate sound or noise, on the streets and especially in political and social agitation. The multiplicity of voices was ultimately the defining characteristic of the black public sphere, and of black modernity itself.

Beryl Henderson undergraduate prize-winning essay. Free download available at Taylor & Francis si... more Beryl Henderson undergraduate prize-winning essay. Free download available at Taylor & Francis site linked below.

Film reviews by Clare Corbould

Book Reviews by Clare Corbould