Download This PaperFive Easy Pieces: Race in the Symbolic Universe
15 Pages Posted: 30 Jul 2014
Date Written: July 28, 2014
Abstract
How did Western culture get from Shakespeare’s Caliban to Bill Cosby’s Dr. Cliff Huxtable? This essay examines that trajectory by consider six imaginative works: Shakespeare's The Tempest, Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Forster's A Passage to India, Faulkner's Light in August, Zemeckis's Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Cosby Show. The focus is on the projective dynamics of racisim where the racial Other is made to express feelings and desires that the dominant culture denies.
Keywords: race, racism, multiculturalism, African-America, projection, symbolism, culture
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Benzon, William L., Five Easy Pieces: Race in the Symbolic Universe (July 28, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2473235 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2473235
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