MLA's "Best First Book" (1994), Outstanding Book on the Subject of Human Rights by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights (1994), Avery O. Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians (1994)
Academic background
Alma mater
Columbia University
Academic work
Discipline
American Studies, African American Literature and Culture
Institutions
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Notable works
Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (1993), Black Mirror: The Cultural Contradictions of American Racism (2017)
Eric Lott (born 1959) is an American cultural historian and Distinguished Professor of English at The Graduate Center, CUNY in New York City.[1] The son of Richard L. (an attorney) and Judith K. (an administrator) Lott, Eric Lott was previously a faculty member in the Department of English at the University of Virginia.[2]
Lott received his Ph.D. in 1991 from Columbia University. His book about the origins, evolution, and cultural significance of blackface minstrelsy, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (1993), received the 1994 Avery O. Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians and the first annual Modern Language Association's "Best First Book" prize, and the 1994 Outstanding Book on the Subject of Human Rights by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights.[3]
Love and Theft extensively documents the racism and cultural appropriation inherent in blackface performance; Lott also argues that it demonstrates a current of homosexual desire for Black men's bodies;[4] he also argues that "mixed in with vicious parodies and lopsided appropriation, minstrelsy involved a real love of African American culture."[5]
Bob Dylan is widely reported to have taken the title of his album Love and Theft from that of Lott's book; Lott, in turn, considered his own title "a riff on" Leslie Fiedler's Love and Death in the American Novel.[6]
His writing has also appeared in numerous publications, such as Village Voice, The Nation, Transition, and American Quarterly. He is one of the co-directors of the Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth College.[7]
Lott's latest book, Black Mirror, extends his views on the contradictions of American racism to more contemporary themes, including the presidency of Barack Obama, Elvis impersonation, and Dylan's Love and Theft. The analysis in the book is heavily driven by Marxist analysis regarding "surplus value," which is extended to an analysis of the "symbolic capital" of cultural appropriation.[8]
^"The GC's Eric Lott Is Promoted to Distinguished Professor". www.gc.cuny.edu. Archived from the original on 2020-01-26. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
^Biography Archived 2019-12-04 at the Wayback Machine, gc.cuny.edu. Accessed March 12, 2024.
^Nationally acclaimed author to give Nye Lecture as part of Ethnomusicology Forum Archived 2006-09-01 at the Wayback Machine University of Michigan, April 15, 1999. Accessed August 10, 2006.
^Love and Theft, passim.
^Abstract Archived 2007-03-11 at the Wayback Machine for Lott's plenary talk "Love and Theft Revisited: Poseurs and Playas from Blackface to Hip-Hop (And What This All Means for Rock and Roll)" at the Pop Conference, Experience Music Project, 2005. Accessed August 10, 2006.
^David McNair and Jayson Whitehead interview with Lott on Gadfly Online. Accessed August 10, 2006.
^"Futures of American Studies Institute". www.dartmouth.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
^"Black Mirror by Eric Lott". onlinereviewofbooks.com. Retrieved 2017-10-05.
EricLott (born 1959) is an American cultural historian and Distinguished Professor of English at The Graduate Center, CUNY in New York City. The son...
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gender, sexuality, race, taste and decency. According to social historian EricLott, "the widespread embarrassment and innuendo surrounding Elvis impersonation...
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political reasons and others as simply commercial theatrical ventures. EricLott, in his book Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working...
by both Keith's Music House and Oliver Ditson in Boston in 1846, but EricLott (citing Hans Nathan) gives the version a date of 1844. This probably refers...
Hortense Spillers, John Carlos Rowe, Tim Melley, Heike Paul, Liam Kennedy, EricLott, Hamilton Carroll, Annie McClanahan, Colleen Boggs, and Dana Luciano....
for Barnum, Heth told stories about "little George" and sang a hymn. EricLott claimed Heth earned the impresario $1,500 a week, a princely sum in that...
[citation needed] In an interview with PBS television, social historian EricLott said, "all the citizens' councils in the South called Elvis 'nigger music'...
having its origin in the minstrel show. According to film historian EricLott: For the white minstrel man to put on the cultural forms of 'blackness'...
of expressing their feelings and fears about race and control. Writes EricLott in Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class:...
City - Christian Discipleship in a Pluralist World (ISPCK 1999) 2000 EricLott (United Theological College, Bangalore) 'Religious Faith, Human Identity...
but later writers concluded that the boy was that performer. Historian EricLott has identified the irony of this arrangement: a black man imitating a...
The Lott IMPACT Trophy is presented annually to the college football defensive IMPACT player of the year. IMPACT is an acronym for: Integrity, Maturity...
2002 UCLA History Department online biography Russell Jacoby versus EricLott Columbia University online March 24, 2006 USC Libraries online thumbnail...
Umbrella research facility just in time to save Lott from a Hunter. "Vincent" then learns from Lott that he is, in fact, Ark Thompson, that he was sent...
York: Dodd, Mead. Estabrook, pages 73–78. Pancoast and Lincoln, page 23. EricLott (1993). Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working...
audiences, the comedy of "Lucy Long" came from several different quarters. EricLott argues that race is paramount. The lyrics are in an exaggerated form of...
(1989–1991). Lee Chun-seok, 65, South Korean footballer (Daewoo Royals). Johannes Lott, 94, Estonian lawyer and politician, chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the...
Tennessee history. He was nominated as a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award, the Lott Trophy, and the Chuck Bednarik Award. Berry was named the SEC Defensive Player...
Martin Lott (October 16, 1906 – December 3, 1991) was an American tennis player and tennis coach who was born in Springfield, Illinois. Lott is mostly...
second studio album by English singer Pixie Lott, released on 11 November 2011 by Mercury Records. Lott enlisted previous collaborators Mads Hauge, Phil...
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