Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION Reading the Writing on the Wall CHAPTER 1. Racing Robots and Making Slaves: How the Past Informs the Future CHAPTER 2. Proslavery Thought and the Black Robot: Selling Household Appliances to Southern Belles CHAPTER 3. The True Cult of Humanhood: Displacing Repressed Sexuality onto Mechanical Bodies CHAPTER 4. The Tragic Mulatto and the Android: Imitations of Life in Literature and on the Silver Screen CHAPTER 5. AI (Artificial Identity): The New Negro CHAPTER 6. From Fritz Lang to Janelle Monae: Black Robots Singing and Dancing CONCLUSION When the Revolution Comes BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

About the Author

Gregory Hampton is associate professor of African-American literature and is the director of graduate studies in the department of English at Howard University.