“In Skin Acts, Michelle Ann Stephens provides a valuable contribution to the study of race and representation by offering a thorough account of the relationship between black skin and white gaze and the production of difference in twentieth-century US popular culture.”
-- Brandi T. Summers Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies
"Skin Acts provides highly productive discourses for anyone interested in black cultural studies, performance theory, and/or racialization."
-- Lia T. Bascomb Contemporary Theatre Review
"The book is well written and rich with analytic detail regarding each of the four case studies, particularly through the use of visual materials. Skin Acts is a valuable contribution to the literatures of race, psychoanalytic theory, masculinity, and performance."
-- Devon R. Goss Men and Masculinities
"Skin Acts is an ambitious and well-researched study that anyone interested in the intersections of psychoanalysis and critical race theory should read."
-- Rocío Pichon-Rivière e-misférica
"By pushing the reader to think about how multiple sites of self-definition and societal gaze create the racial, bodily landscape of the black masculine performer, Stephens makes an important contribution to black masculinity studies and performance studies, and articulates the importance for the field of skin studies. Stephens’s interdisciplinary project effortlessly blends performance theory, psychoanalysis, and historical theories of race, corporeality, and physiognomy to produce an accessible framework for understanding black masculine performers in the twentieth century."
-- Brandon J. Manning Callaloo