Hair Raising

Beauty, Culture, and African American Women

by Noliwe M. Rooks

Published by: Rutgers University Press

Subjects:Sociology, African American Studies

176 Pages, 5.5 x 8.5 in

Paperback
9780813523125
Published: July 1, 1996

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise
Awards

We all know there is a politics of skin color, but is there a politics of hair? In this book, Noliwe Rooks explores the history and politics of hair and beauty culture in African American communities from the nineteenth century to the 1990s. She discusses the ways in which African American women have located themselves in their own families, communities, and national culture through beauty advertisements, treatments, and styles. Bringing the story into today's beauty shop, listening to other women talk about braids, Afros, straighteners, and what they mean today to grandmothers, mothers, sisters, friends, and boyfriends, she also talks about her own family and has fun along the way. Hair Raising is that rare sort of book that manages both to entertain and to illuminate its subject.

Nappi by nature: afros, hot combs, and black pride
Beauty, race, and black pride
Advertising contradictions
Broadening representational boundaries
Gender, hair, and African American women's magazines
In search of connections

Noliwe M. Rooks is an assistant professor of English and the coordinator of African American Studies at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She was the associate editor of Paris Connections: African American Artists in Paris, winner of a 1993 American Book Award.

Rooks's excellent book is a welcome entry in the feminist debates about American 'beauty culture'... Readable, accessible, and helpfully illustrated. ~Choice

Rooks dig deep to describe how beauty and culture have politicized African American women and demonstrates that Western definitions of beauty are often not endorsed by African American women. Compelling. ~Booklist

Hair Rising is insightful, engaging, imaginative, and even musical. Rooks harmonizes her voice as a scholar analyzing hair with her voice as a black woman talking politics with other black women, in salons and parlors, to the rhythms of combing, brushing, braiding, and straightening... This a must-read! ~Gloria Wade-Gayles, Professor of English and Women's Studies, Spelman College, and author of Pushed Back to Strength: A Black Woman's Journey Home

Rooks deconstructs dominant cultural notions of femininity and/or beauty with humor, dignity, and a defiant sassiness. Read this book! ~Joanne M. Braxton, Frances and Edwin L. Cummings Professor of America Studies and English, The College of William and Mary

One of Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic Books of 1997

Hair Raising

Beauty, Culture, and African American Women

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