Buying Whiteness

GARY TAYLOR is director of the Hudson Strode Renaissance Center at the University of Alabama and is a major figure in early modern literature criticism and cultural studies. His previous books include Castration (Routledge) and Oxford is publishing his new edition of the works of Middleton. He is one of the series editors of the Signs of Race series.

'In this wide-ranging, deftly coordinated, incisively focused book, Gary Taylor addresses two Renaissances. Making a major contribution to the new subfield of whiteness studies in the English Renaissance, Taylor locates the origin of an explicit appeal to white racial identity in the second decade of the 17th century-a turning point he illuminates through strong comparative analysis of the transition from Shakespeare to Thomas Middleton. Moreover, since the book's reach extends to the 19th-century American literary Renaissance, revised to include African-American voices, Taylor also brilliantly reconfigures the overall framework of whiteness studies as a whole. Gary Taylor speaks with contemporary urgency about the persistent problem of white blindness to white skin privilege: presenting a comprehensive, detailed history of white identity formation, Taylor opens our eyes. Future scholarship starts here.' - Peter Erickson, author of Patriarchal Structures in Shakespeare's Drama and Rewriting Shakespeare, Rewriting Ourselves 'Gary Taylor's meditation on whiteness is learned, articulate, and deeply felt. Much of the material will be unfamiliar to most readers, and the argument, original and provocative, genuinely transforms an essential part of the social and cultural landscape. This is an important and exciting book.' - Stephen Orgel, J.E. Reynolds Professor in Humanities, Stanford University, Stanford, USA

• White Fractions, White Fictions The Absence of Whiteness Authoritative Whiteness Popular Whiteness White Slavery White Sex White America White Now