Games of Property: Law, Race, Gender, and Faulkner's Go Down, Moses - Tapa dura

"It may sound hyperbolic to claim that nothing like this exists in Faulkner scholarship, but that's my claim. Games of Property contributes to a new understanding of not only Go Down, Moses, but of much of Faulkner's work."-Linda Wagner-Martin, Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill "From the opening lines, we are in the presence of an original and powerful voice that expands the boundaries of the field of `law and literature' and offers a fresh way of understanding one of William Faulkner's most elliptical texts."-Linda K. Kerber, May Brodbeck Professor of History, University of Iowa "Every now and then, a book comes along that takes us utterly by surprise, reconfiguring old geographies of criticism with originality, power, and brilliance. Thadious M. Davis has produced just such a book. We (and William Faulkner!) are blessed by her attention to race, property, agency, game theory, and critical legal studies. Yoknapatawpha and its creator find radically new use value for a new millennium in Davis's labors, and we are all gifted with beautifully written scholarship, and an indispensable pedagogical meditation. Davis's `Book of Moses' is must reading."-Houston A. Baker, Jr., author of Turning South Again: Re-thinking Modernism/Re-reading Booker T.

In Games of Property, distinguished critic Thadious M. Davis provides a dazzling new interpretation of William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses. Davis argues that in its unrelenting attention to issues related to the ownership of land and people, Go Down, Moses ranks among Faulkner's finest and most accomplished works. Bringing together law, social history, game theory, and feminist critiques, she shows that the book is unified by games-fox hunting, gambling with cards and dice, racing-and, like the law, games are rule-dependent forms of social control and commentary. She illuminates the dual focus in Go Down, Moses on property and ownership on the one hand and on masculine sport and social ritual on the other. Games of Property is a masterful contribution to understandings of Faulkner's fiction and the power and scope of property law.