"Appropriating Blackness is compelling . . . because of the range, rigor, and cogent insight it provides relative to studies of black performance. . . . I commend this book, especially, to scholars of cultural politics, performance, race, queer studies, and those that take up these issues in critical media studies." — Robert Avery , Liminalities
"Appropriating Blackness offers an illuminating and compelling example of a critical politics of performing race. It decisively intervenes in disciplinary dialogues to rethink performance theory through the praxis of blackness, and to rethink black theory through performance. . . . Appropriating Blackness is one of the most significant studies to emerge in performance studies. It is a book we will need, a book we will use, and a book that marks our best disciplinary work." — Kristin M. Langellier, Text and Performance Quarterly
"Appropriating Blackness marks a daring intervention in performance studies and African American studies. Its critical and ethical concerns will resonate for those working in numerous other fields, such as cultural anthropology; philosophy; critical ethnicity and race studies; gay, lesbian and queer studies; pedagogy studies; and music." — Antonio Viego , GLQ
"Johnson adds some heretofore unheard of twists to the continuing saga of this most important black intellectual thought. . . . [A] welcome addition to the field." — Toni Lester , Lambda Book Report
"Johnson's first book . . . is an accomplished and original study that deftly traverses both the mythology of, and networks of power that remain embedded within, America's deep racial segregation. . . . It is obvious that he seems destined to join Cornell West as a leading authority on race, not to mention performance studies and queer theory both in the United States and abroad." — James Tierney , M/C Reviews
"With Appropriating Blackness, E. Patrick Johnson has given us a book worthy of the breadth its title signals. It is written in an excellent and refreshingly clear prose style which sacrifices nothing in the way of complexity of the ideas being presented. Johnson makes his observations about the relatedness of performance and blackness more compelling with each successive case study." — Dwight A. McBride, coeditor of Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction
"Appropriating Blackness is a wonderful study that makes important and timely contributions across many fields. E. Patrick Johnson is a skilled reader of texts and offers useful introductions to complex theories of race, sexuality, and culture.”
— David Román, author of Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS