Whiteness Visible: The Meaning of Whiteness in American Literature

by Valerie Babb

In Whiteness Visible , Valerie Babb investigates the history, values, rituals, and shared consciousness that created whiteness in the United States, as well as the representations that sustain its influence on both cultural and literary vision. Babb formulates an understanding of whiteness by tracing its literary and cultural evolution, enlisting diverse sources from, among others, the Han dynasty, Aristotle's Politica , and excerpts from the recollections of white indentured servants.
Babb's textual analysis begins by surveying the construction of whiteness in early American writings and material culture, and continues through literature of the nineteenth century, surveying whiteness in texts commonly acknowledged as standards in U.S. literature-- The Last of the Mohicans and Moby Dick . She then investigates representations of whiteness in a variety of late- nineteenth and early-twentieth century cultural creations, among them immigrant autobiographies, World's Fair expositions, and etiquette books. Babb convincingly illustrates the ways in which a variety of cultural creations combine to help shape the concept of universal whiteness.
Whiteness Visible boldly claims that we can only understand the full significance of race and the ways in which it influences cultural understanding and cultural creation in the United States when we interrogate whiteness and make it visible.

Genres: History, American, Academic

227 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1998

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book that clearly traces the development of the concept of 'whiteness' in American History. The literature refered to is not just 'fiction/literature' but all kinds of writings, including mapping: those written or mapped lines that draw identity as cultural myth; whose purpose is to limit, enslave and appropriate; utilizing the coded invisibily of a non existant color; constructed so that this myth may never be pinned down.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I got this book from my grandmother (a progressive literary geek) and was intruiged by the main thesis - that whiteness has been specifically constructed in this country, including through literature. I learned a lot from the book - it has great thorough research with quotes and references that inspired me to read more. I agree with her thesis, although the presentation of it got jumbled some.

She blended together the ideas that whiteness is a specifically constructed identity and the fact that this happened through literature. I think the former is a larger cultural discussion about race as a constructed concept and the multiple, various cultural systems that combined to promote and accept this construction. As of right now, that's not an idea that's firmly established at least among the general pulbic (perhaps within academic or literary circles there's more consensus). I think she got sidetracked trying to prove this first point - which is indeed necessary for her main point and research to be relevant. The second point - that literature was one vehicle of this construction gets lost in the larger discussion of historical and cultural change. The discussion of Moby Dick I think weakens her thesis even further as an example of writing that RESISTS the general trend.

Thank god for another book talking about whiteness, but my suggestion: Read more general works on whiteness - and then read this if you are interested in literature specifically. Some more accessible and powerful examples: How the Irish Became White, Everything but the Burden

[Tarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her literary analysis of Moby Dick is really stirring. The work in and of itself is important, but the book is often uneven. She moves from cartography to Melville to housing sectioning as examples of the workings of whiteness in society and how it inscribes itself as dominant normalcy (and, in the case of Melville, how you work against that), and these are all fine examples, but they are disparate and she doesn't make a good case as to why these examples all belong together (why not all lit? all housing/education studies? etc.)