This talk addresses the social and cultural history of colour by analyzing the role of ‘brown’ complexion in defining African American gendered identities. Focusing on the period between the1920s and the early post-World War II era, Dr Haidarali traces how cultural representations of colour—produced and consumed by diverse groups of African Americans—helped construct an idealized middle-class notion of womanhood as Brown.
In her discussion of the postwar African American modelling industry, Dr Haidarali examines how gendered notions of labour, beauty, sexuality and class forged a dynamic, consumer-based photographic discourse that, on the eve of the modern civil rights era, situated Brownskin womanhood at centre.
This event is open to the general public.
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