Hartman shows how the violence of captivity and enslavement was embodied in many of the performance practices that grew from, and about, slave culture in antebellum America. Using tools of anthropology, history, and literary criticism, Hartman examines a wealth of material, including songs, dance, stories, diaries, narratives, and journals. Hartman analyses the presentations of slavery and blackness in minstrelsy; the constructions of slave culture in 19th century ethnographic writings and the political consciousness of folklore.