Wounds of Returning: Race, Memory, and Property on the Postslavery Plantation

New Directions in Southern Studies

by Jessica Adams

Adams explores how the commodification of black bodies during slavery did not disappear with abolition--rather, the same principle was transformed into modern consumer capitalism. From Storyville brothels and narratives of turn-of-the-century New Orleans to plantation tours, Bette Davis films, Elvis memorials, Willa Cather’s fiction, and the annual prison rodeo held at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Jessica Adams considers spatial and ideological evolutions of southern plantations after slavery. Peeling back the layers of plantation landscapes, Adams reveals connections between seemingly disparate features of modern culture, suggesting that they remain haunted by the force of the unnatural equation of people as property.

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 21, 2007

About the author

Jessica Adams is an astrologer and author. Her books include 2020 Vision, Handbag Horoscopes and Astrolove (Penguin) and Essential Astrology for Women (HarperCollins). Her recent book 2020 Astrology: Your Five-Year Horoscope Guide, was a #1 Amazon bestseller in America and Australia. Jessica has worked as a team editor on the Girls' Night In and Kids' Night in series, for Penguin and HarperCollins, with contributors including J.K.Rowling, Stella McCartney and Nick Hornby. She is the Editor of The Holiday Goddess Guide to Paris, London, New York and Rome (HarperCollins). Jessica lives in Australia and her astrology has appeared everywhere from VOGUE (Japan) to GQ (Great Britain). Her latest book is Your Birthday (Hachette/Running Press) with Rachel Wells. She is the astrological consultant on The Aries Billionaire by Rachel Wells (Audible UK).

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for a class. I found the chapter examining Graceland in particular very interesting considering the wider context of the Plantation and the consumption of black bodies in the plantation setting that is taking place throughout the text.

[Mark Cheathem]

Not as good as I expected. It was a bit too heavy on the lit theory.