This text presents the current state in interdisciplinary racial studies, looking in detail at the construction, perception and representation of race in a variety of literature. The essays examine style, figures of speech, settings, narrative devices and historical social situations.

Writing and Race brings together specially commissioned essays by new and established authors from a range of disciplines. Texts are drawn from subjects and genres that include philosophy, politics, anthropology, sexuality, travel, fiction and autobiography. Through a time-span from Ancient Greece to the present day, and a geographical coverage from Australia and Europe to the Caribbean and the United States, the collection investigates the importance of place, moment, cultural formation and subject identity in racial representation. A substantial introduction establishes the connections between the essays and lucidly summarizes recent thinking on race, explaining in particular the relevance of debates about ethnography. Accessible and stimulating, Writing and Race is a multidisciplinary collection that will be of interest to students, researchers, and lecturers who study or are interested in race. The essays represent a variety of critical approaches, thus allowing the reader to compare and contrast the benefits of each approach. Extracts of some of the texts that are discussed are included along with an extensive bibliography to encourage further study.

1. Introduction, Tim Youngs 2. 'Philosophers among the savages', Michael K. Green 3. 'A monstrous race for possession. Discourses of monstrosity in The Tempest and early British America', Geas Mackenthun 4. 'Racial identity and self-invention in North America: the Red and the Black', David Murray 5. Once upon a time in America: race, ethnicity and narrative remembrance', Liam Kennedy 6. 'Appropriating a tradition: history and identity in the work of Maryse Conde', Sam Haigh 7. 'Race and the modernist aesthetic', Simon Gikandi 8. 'White apes at the fin de siecle', Tim Youngs 9. 'Hunting the pederast: Richard Burton's exotic erotology', Chris White 10. 'Alfred W. Howitt and Lorimer Fison: "Victorian" ethnography and the gendered "primitive"', Lynnette Turner 11. 'The disappearing other: exoticism and the destruction in Jack London's South Sea writings', Christopher Gair 12. 'Modernity and racism', Richard H. King
Extracts Bibliography