Synopses & Reviews
Western culture has long regarded black female sexuality with a strange mix of fascination and condemnation, associating it with everything from desirability, hypersexuality, and liberation to vulgarity, recklessness, and disease. Yet even as their bodies and sexualities have been the subject of countless public discourses, black womenandrsquo;s voices have been largely marginalized in these discussions. In this groundbreaking collection, feminist scholars from across the academy come together to correct this omissionandmdash;illuminating black female sexual desires marked by agency and empowerment, as well as pleasure and pain, to reveal the ways black women regulate their sexual lives.and#160;
The twelve original essays inand#160;Black Female Sexualitiesand#160;reveal the diverse ways black women perceive, experience, and represent sexuality. The contributors highlight the range of tactics that black women use to express their sexual desires and identities. Yet they do not shy away from exploring the complex ways in which black women negotiate the more traumatic aspects of sexuality and grapple with the legacy of negative stereotypes.and#160;
Black Female Sexualitiesand#160;takes not only an interdisciplinary approachandmdash;drawing from critical race theory, sociology, and performance studiesandmdash;but also an intergenerational one, in conversation with the foremothers of black feminist studies. In addition, it explores a diverse archive of representations, covering everything from blues to hip-hop, fromand#160;Crashand#160;toand#160;Precious, fromand#160;Sister Souljahand#160;to Edwidge Danticat. Revealing that black female sexuality is anything but a black-and-white issue, this collection demonstrates how to appreciate a whole spectrum of subjectivities, experiences, and desires. and#160;
Review
andquot;This is a rich, multifaceted volume that leaves few if any stones unturned in exploring the themes of sex, sexuality, and feminism in relation to Black women.andquot;
Review
andquot;This volume provides an illuminating discourse about the meaning, metaphors, and magnitude of black female sexuality as an agent of both oppression and transformation.andquot;
Synopsis
The twelve original essays in Black Female Sexualities reveal the diverse ways black women perceive, experience, and represent sexuality. The contributors highlight the range of tactics that black women use to express their sexual desires and identities. Yet they do not shy away from exploring the complex ways in which black women negotiate the more traumatic aspects of sexuality and grapple with the legacy of negative stereotypes.and#160;
About the Author
TRIMIKO MELANCON is an assistant professor of English, African American studies, and womenandrsquo;s studies at Loyola University New Orleans. She is the author of
Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation.and#160;
and#160;JOANNE M. BRAXTON is the Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Professor of English and the Humanities at the College of William and Mary. She is the author of Black Women Writing Autobiography: A Tradition Within a Tradition.and#160;
Table of Contents
Foreword
Melissa Harris-Perry
Introductionand#160;and#160;and#160; andldquo;somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuffandrdquo;: Black Female Sexualities and Black Feminist Intervention-Trimiko Melancon
Part I Sexual Embod(y)ment: Framing the Body
Chapter 1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Entering Through the Bodyandrsquo;s Frame: Precious and the Subjective Delineations of the Movie Poster Kimberly
Juanita Brown
Chapter 2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Is It Just Baby F(Ph)at?: Black Female Teenagers, Body Size, and Sexuality
Courtney J. Patterson
Chapter 3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Corporeal Presence: Engaging the Black Lesbian Pedagogical Body in Feminist Classrooms and College Communities
Mel Michelle Lewis
Chapter 4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Untangling Pathology: Sex, Social Responsibility, and the Black Female Youth in Octavia Butlerandrsquo;s Fledgling
Esther L. Jones
Part IIand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Disengaging the Gaze
Chapter 5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Mis(Playing) Blackness: Rendering Black Female Sexuality in The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
Ariane Cruz
Chapter 6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Why Donandrsquo;t We Love These Hoes?: Black Women, Popular Culture, and the Contemporary Hoe Archetype
Mahaliah Ayana Little
Chapter 7and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; What Kind of Woman?: Alberta Hunter and Expressions of Black Female Sexuality in the Twentieth Century
K. T. Ewing
Chapter 8and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The andldquo;P-Wordandrdquo; Exchange: Representing Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary Urban Fiction
Cherise A. Pollard
Part IIIand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Resisting Erasure
Chapter 9and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; andldquo;Ou libandeacute;randeacute;?andrdquo;: Sexual Abuse and Resistance in Edwidge Danticatandrsquo;s Breath, Eyes, Memory
Sandra C. Duvivier
Chapter 10and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Rape Fantasies and Other Assaults: Black Womenandrsquo;s Sexuality and Racial Redemption on Film
Erin D. Chapman
Chapter 11and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; andldquo;Embrace the Narrative of the Wholeandrdquo;: Complicating Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary Fiction
Johanna X. K. Garvey
Chapter 12and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Saving Me through Erasure?: Black Women, HIV/AIDS and Respectability
Ayana K. Weekley
Afterword: Being Present, Facing Forward
Joanne M. Braxton
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors