Surveillance, Race, Culture

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. “Introduction”

   • Susan Flynn, Antonia Mackay

   Pages 1-18

3. Surveillant Technologies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. “Articulating Race: Reading Skin Colour as Taxonomy and as Numerical Data”

      • Joel Beatty, Stefka Hristova

      Pages 21-41

   3. “Government Surveillance: Racism and Civic Virtue in the United States”

      • Mary K. Ryan

      Pages 43-59

   4. “Sampled Sirens in the City of Los Angeles: Sound Effects and Panopticism on the Contemporary Black Film Screen”

      • James Millea

      Pages 61-75

   5. “Medical Gazing and the Oprah Effect in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017)”

      • Susan Flynn

      Pages 77-97

4. Screen

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 99-99

      PDF

   2. “Images of Black Identity: Spaces In-Between”

      • Jonathan Wright

      Pages 101-124

   3. “Knowing the Double Agent: Islam, Uncertainty and the Fragility of the Surveillant Gaze in Homeland”

      • Alex Adams

      Pages 125-143

   4. “Allegories of 9/11 and Apartheid: Abjection, Race, and Surveillance in Neill Blomkamp’s District 9”

      • Frances Pheasant-Kelly

      Pages 145-169

   5. “Intersectional Digital Dynamics and Profiled Black Celebrities”

      • Francesca Sobande

      Pages 171-187

5. Literature, Art, Performance, Action

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 189-189

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   2. “Let Him Be Left to Feel His Way in the Dark;” Frederick Douglass: White Surveillance and Dark Sousveillance

      • Sarah Cullen

      Pages 191-206

   3. “Perceptions of Prisoners: Re/Constructing Meaning Inside the Frame of War”

      • Jaclyn Meloche

      Pages 207-225

   4. “Cops and Incarceration: Constructing Racial Narratives in Reality TV’s Prisons”

      • Antonia Mackay

      Pages 227-245

   5. “Pan-African Pessimism: The Man Who Cried I Am and the Limits of Black Nationalism”

      • Richard Hancuff

      Pages 247-265

   6. “‘Woke up with Death Every Morning.’ Surveillance Experiences of Black Panther Party Activists.”

      • Max Gedig

      Pages 267-281

6. Back Matter

   Pages 283-294

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This collection of essays engages with a wide range of disciplines including art, performance, film and literature, to examine the myriad effects of contemporary surveillance on our cultural psyche. The volume expertly articulates the manner in which cultural productions have been complicit in watching, seeing and purporting to ‘know’ race. In our increasingly mediated world, our sense of community is becoming progressively virtual, and surveillant technologies impact upon subjectivity, resulting in multiple forms of artistic and cultural expression. As such, art, film, and literature provide a lens for the reflection of sociocultural concerns. In Surveillance, Race, Culture Flynn and Mackay skilfully draw together a diverse range of contributions to investigate the fundamental question of exactly how surveillant technologies have informed our notions of race, identity and belonging. 

• Race
• Surveillance
• Culture
• Technology
• Cultural Studies
• Surveillant Technologies

• University of the Arts London, London, United Kingdom

  Susan Flynn

• Oxford Brookes University , Oxford, United Kingdom

  Antonia Mackay

Susan Flynn is Senior Lecturer in Media Communications at the University of the Arts, London, UK. She specialises in digital media, identity and equality studies.


Antonia Mackay is Associate Lecturer in English Literature at Oxford Brookes University, UK, specialising in American literature, culture and theatre.

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