Between The Masks

Between the Masks articulates a study of representation and the 'politics of place' through a pedagogy of narrative-performing inquiry and a critical reflection on identity. As a resistance to essentialist politics, the text focuses on the identity making/marking role of cultural materials in the recovery of different and overdetermind histories. It proposes a multicultural revision of knowledge that displaces the binarisms of insider/outside rather than simply shifting the margin to the center. By combining perspectives that produce strong readings with a semiotic method of analysis, the essentialist representations of racial, ethnic, sexual, and class biases will be revealed as strategies of power that employ appearance in their seduction. By this method, Brunner suggests a view of reflexive performance that seeks not to legitimate, but to critique, displace, and liberate these illusions of identity. Between the Masks promotes critical teaching that can bring together the literary, the historic, the theoretical, and the sociological. Brunner suggests the combined study of cultural studies and education as a theoretical and pedagogical site which embraces curriculum theory, teacher preparation, and policy. This book marks a move toward intertextual, interdisciplinary study which will help educators modulate the complicated conversations and contexts of today's schools.

Between the Masks articulates a study of representation and the _politics of place_ through a pedagogy of narrative-performing inquiry and a critical reflection on identity. As a resistance to essentialist politics, the text focuses on the identity making/marking role of cultural materials in the recovery of different and overdetermind histories. It proposes a multicultural revision of knowledge that displaces the binarisms of insider/outside rather than simply shifting the margin to the center.

Booknews

A work of cultural criticism which examines how identity and ethnicity are constructed culturally and pedagogically. In her rambling exploration of body, place, cultural self-discovery, and narrative, Brunner (English, Michigan State U.) visits contemporary films, multi-ethnic novels, performance events, several of her own formative experiences, and the ideas of a broad range of theorists and philosophers. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Diane DuBose Brunner is associate professor of English and director of English education at Michigan State University.