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The Scene of Harlem Cabaret: Race, Sexuality, Performance. By Shane Vogel. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. xiv, 257 pp. Cloth, $60.00, isbn 978-0-226-86251-4. Paper. S22.00, isbn 978-0-226-86252-1.)
One argument in Shane Vogels The Scene of Harlem Cabaret is that writers, artists, and performers during and since the Harlem Renaissance have set their work in Harlem cabarets - the longstanding symbol of "the pleasures and dangers of urban life" - to critique the uplift ideology thai sought to undermine racism by emphasizing the achievements and sophistication of African Americans, particularly the black middle class (p. 2). But even more important to Vogel is the idea that, for members of what he calls the Cabaret School, writing about or performing in the cabaret has not only been a way...