Keep Your Head to the Sky: Interpreting African American Home Ground,edited by Grey Gundaker

Reviews
Author
To Order

Keep Your Head to the Sky: Interpreting African American Home Ground

edited by Grey Gundaker

352 pages, 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 • Cloth $65.00 • Paper $22.50

Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1807-3 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1824-3

The concept of African American home ground knits together diverse aspects of the American landscape, from elite suburbs and tower apartments to the old homeplaces of the countryside, to the tabletop array of family photos beside the bed of a housebound elder. This fascinating volume focuses on ways African Americans have invested actual and symbolic landscapes with signifigance, gained the means to acquire property, and brought new insight to the interpretation of contemporary, historical, and archaelogical sites. Keep Your Head to the Sky demonstrates how visions of home, past and present, have helped to shape African Americans' sense of place, often under extremely hostile conditions.

Reviews

"Keep Your Head to the Sky is a ground-breaking work. The first book to focus on a crucial aspect of African American culture, it examines the ways in which an exiled people has located itself through such activities as 'yard work.' Gundaker brings togeth some of the top scholars in the field, as well as a number of exciting new voices. While the resulting material is often controversial, it is well-argued and thoroughly documented."

--Judith Wilson, University of California-Irvine

The Author

Grey Gundaker is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at the College of William and Mary and the author of Signs of Diaspora/Diaspora of Signs: Literacy, Creolization, and Vernacular Practice in African America.

Keep Your Head to the Sky: Interpreting African American Home Ground
edited by Grey Gundaker
352 pages, 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 • Cloth $65.00 • Paper $22.50
Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1807-3 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1824-3

http://www.upress.virginia.edu/gundaker.html

Revised 7/25/05

Reviews Author To Order		Keep Your Head to the Sky: Interpreting African American Home Ground
		edited by Grey Gundaker
		352 pages, 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 • Cloth $65.00 • Paper $22.50
		Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1807-3 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1824-3
		The concept of African American home ground knits together diverse aspects of the American landscape, from elite suburbs and tower apartments to the old homeplaces of the countryside, to the tabletop array of family photos beside the bed of a housebound elder. This fascinating volume focuses on ways African Americans have invested actual and symbolic landscapes with signifigance, gained the means to acquire property, and brought new insight to the interpretation of contemporary, historical, and archaelogical sites. Keep Your Head to the Sky demonstrates how visions of home, past and present, have helped to shape African Americans' sense of place, often under extremely hostile conditions.
		Reviews
		"Keep Your Head to the Sky is a ground-breaking work. The first book to focus on a crucial aspect of African American culture, it examines the ways in which an exiled people has located itself through such activities as 'yard work.' Gundaker brings togeth some of the top scholars in the field, as well as a number of exciting new voices. While the resulting material is often controversial, it is well-argued and thoroughly documented." --Judith Wilson, University of California-Irvine
		The Author
		Grey Gundaker is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at the College of William and Mary and the author of Signs of Diaspora/Diaspora of Signs: Literacy, Creolization, and Vernacular Practice in African America.

		Keep Your Head to the Sky: Interpreting African American Home Ground edited by Grey Gundaker 352 pages, 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 • Cloth $65.00 • Paper $22.50 Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1807-3 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1824-3
		http://www.upress.virginia.edu/gundaker.html
		Revised 7/25/05