Acknoweldgments ix

Introduction: Raising the Dead 1

1 Death and the Nations Subjects 13

2 Bakulu Discourse: Bodies Made "Flesh" in Toni Morrison's Beloved 41

3 Telling the Story of Genocide in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead 68

4 (Pro)Creating Imaginative Spaces and Other Queer Acts 103

5 "From this Moment Forth, We Are Black Lesbians": Querying Feminism and Killing the Self in Consolidated's Business of Punishment 124

6 Critical Conversations at the Boundary between Life and Death 149

Epilogue 175

Notes 183

Selected Bibliography 209

Index 227

Winner, Lora Romero First Book Prize, American Studies Association

“[A] bold intervention in American cultural and literary studies . . . . [I]t is certain that this impressive and engaging book opens many doors and points the way for other cultural studies work in the liminal spaces along the life-death continuum of the Americas.” — Wendy Walters, s Novel

“[A] vigorous and innovative book . . . .” — Gregory Woods, Feminist Theory

"[D]elightful . . . . Sharon Holland’s satisfying first work persuades me yet again of the reverberating wisdom of a familiar black folk saying: As a free black man in postmodern America, all that I have to do anymore is stay black and die.’ . . . More ruefully, if Raising the Dead has made one thing incontestably clear, it is the reasonable certainty that staying black and dying may be one and the same experience." — Maurice Wallace, Callaloo

Winner, Lora Romero First Book Prize, American Studies Association

“[A] bold intervention in American cultural and literary studies . . . . [I]t is certain that this impressive and engaging book opens many doors and points the way for other cultural studies work in the liminal spaces along the life-death continuum of the Americas.” —Wendy Walters, s Novel

“[A] vigorous and innovative book . . . .” —Gregory Woods, Feminist Theory

"[D]elightful . . . . Sharon Holland’s satisfying first work persuades me yet again of the reverberating wisdom of a familiar black folk saying: As a free black man in postmodern America, all that I have to do anymore is stay black and die.’ . . . More ruefully, if Raising the Dead has made one thing incontestably clear, it is the reasonable certainty that staying black and dying may be one and the same experience." —Maurice Wallace, Callaloo

“Raising the Dead is a tour de force filled with provocative, original, and imaginative observations and insights. Sharon Holland draws on a dazzling range of influences and interprets an impressive array of diverse cultural forms as she asks and answers crucial questions about ancestry, origins, and heritage in African American and Native American life and culture.” — George Lipsitz, University of California, San Diego

“A thorough, challenging, and compelling investigation of the themes of subjectivity, death, and their interrelation in twentieth-century American literature and culture.” — Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside

“A work of theoretical power and brilliant interpretive prowess.” — Wahneema Lubiano, Duke University

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