This collection of essays represents new scholarship in African American studies, drawing lessons from the past and providing insights into current intellectual trends. Topics such as the culture of America as a culture of race, legacies of slavery and colonialism, crime and welfare politics, and African American cultural studies are addressed. The following essays are included: Part 1--"Introduction: Looking B(L)ackward: African-American Studies in the Age of Identity Politics" (Robin D. G. Kelley): (1) "Spectors of Race: The Culture of America as a Culture of Race"; (2) "Whose Line Is It Anyway? W. E. B. Du Bois and the Language of the Color Line" (Gavin Jones); (3) "(K)night Riders in (K)night Gowns: The Ku Klux Klan, Race, and Constructions of Masculinity" (Judith Jackson Fossett); (4) "Blackness 'Scuzed: Jimi Hendrix's (In)visible Legacy in Heavy Metal" (Jeremy Wells); Part 2--"Historical (Re)Vision: Legacies of Slavery and Colonialism": (5) "Under One Roof: The Sins and Sanctity of the New Orleans Quadroon Balls" (Monique Guillory); (6) "Traumatic Repetition: Gayl Jones's 'Corregidora'" (Bruce Simon); Part 3--"Race(d) Men and Race(d) Women: African-American Cultural Studies": (7) "Exodus and the Politics of Nation" (Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.); (8) "'Can Science Succeed Where the Civil War Failed?' George S. Schuyler and Race" (Jeffrey A. Tucker); (9) "Hanging on Their Walls: 'An Art Commentary on Lynching,' The Forgotten 1935 Art Exhibition" (Margaret Rose Vendryes); (10) "The Soles of Black Folk: These Reebocks Were Made for Runnin' (from the White Man)" (John L. Jackson, Jr.); and Part 4--"Cracking the Code: Exposing the Nation's Racial Neuroses": (11) "Why Gingrich? Welfare Rights and Racial Politics, 1965-1995" (Felicia A. Kornbluh); (12) "Criminality and Citizenship: Implicating the White Nation" (Karen Ho and Wende Elizabeth Marshall); (13) "Jim Crow Science and the 'Negro Problem' in the Occupied Philippines, 1898-1914" (Paul Kramer); and (14) "Black Power, White Fear: The 'Negro Problem' in Lawrence, Kansas, 1960-1970" (Rusty L. Monhollon). (SLD)