About the Author

ANNEMARIE BEAN is former Managing Editor of The Drama Review. JAMES V. HATCH is Professor of English and Theatre at CUNY and author of Sorrow Is the Only Faithful One (1993). BROOKS McNAMARA is Professor of Performance Studies at NYU and Director of the Schubert Archive. MEL WATKINS is the author of On the Real Side (1994).

Reviews

"This fine collection contains some of the oldest jokes in U.S. history and some of the freshest scholarship in American Studies. Inside the Minstrel Mask gathers primary sources, classic nineteenth-century accounts of blackface shows, influential modern accounts of the meaning of minstrelsy as a performance and craze, and exciting new work on race, gender and humor in one of the nation's most popular and enduring forms of entertainment."--David Roedigger, University of Minnesota

"This fine collection contains some of the oldest jokes in U.S. history and some of the freshest scholarship in American Studies. Inside the Minstrel Mask gathers primary sources, classic nineteenth-century accounts of blackface shows, influential modern accounts of the meaning of minstrelsy as a performance and craze, and exciting new work on race, gender and humor in one of the nation's most popular and enduring forms of entertainment."--David Roedigger, University of Minnesota

"Inside the Minstrel Mask is a welcome addition to our need to know what kind of creature blackface minstrelsy really was: not a monster but not a puppy either; and, most of all, a fascinating clue to neglected issues of race relations and race imagery in 19th century popular culture."--Michele Wallace