I am humbled by this breathtaking collection of essays from an extraordinary group of scholars. Spanning the diaspora and the millennia, this timely collection explores both familiar and new areas of Black feminist historical analysis and cultural interrogation, highlighting new writings on Black womens intellectual traditions and challenging the silences in the archives that have long denied women of color both free and enslaved their roles in making history. From the queens of Ancient Egypt to modern day activists and leaders, there is much here for everyone. This is an essential addition to bookshelves and classrooms everywhere!
Kate Clifford Larson,
author of Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman,
Portrait of an American Hero
The collection we need in this global moment, The Routledge Companion to Black Womens Cultural Histories reveals how Black women around the world are central to our current conceptualizations of knowledge, politics, art, literature, feminisms, and survival. This set of essays is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the struggles we all face and how, with Black women as our guides, we can push for a better and vibrant future.
Ashley D. Farmer, University of Texas at Austin, USA,
author of Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era
The Routledge Companion to Black Womens Cultural Histories is unprecedented in its scope and ambition. In 35 chapters, scholars from Africa, the Americas, and Europe, at different stages of their careers, document the transformative creativity of Black women across the African diaspora. Collectively these chapters demonstrate the complexity, strength, heterogeneity and communal nature of Black womens cultural history. They also inform our understanding of race and gender today, by questioning white canonical constructions of culture and creativity and finding new ways to narrate histories of those long silenced by archives and professional historians. This bold new collection will shape the field of Black womens cultural history for some time to come.
Kate Dossett, University of Leeds, UK,
author of Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal
The Routledge Companion to Black Womens Cultural Histories
In the social and cultural histories of women and feminism, Black women have long been overlooked or ignored. The Routledge Companion to Black Womens Cultural Histories is an impressive and comprehensive reference work for contemporary scholarship on the cultural histories of Black women across the diaspora spanning different eras from ancient times into the twenty-first century. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Companion is divided into five parts:
- A fragmented past, an inclusive future
- Contested histories, subversive memories
- Gendered lives, racial frameworks
- Cultural shifts, social change
- Black identities, feminist formations
Within these sections, a diverse range of women, places, and issues is explored, including ancient African queens, Black women in early modern European art and culture, enslaved Muslim women in the antebellum United States, Sally Hemings, Phillis Wheatley, Black women writers in early twentieth-century Paris, Black women, civil rights, South African apartheid, and sexual violence and resistance in the United States in recent history.
The Routledge Companion to Black Womens Cultural Histories is essential reading for students and researchers in Gender Studies, History, Africana Studies, and Cultural Studies.
Janell Hobson is Professor and Chair of Womens, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York, USA.
The Routledge Companion to Black Womens Cultural Histories
Edited by Janell Hobson
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2021 selection and editorial matter, Janell Hobson; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Janell Hobson to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hobson, Janell, 1973- editor.
Title: The Routledge companion to Black womens cultural histories / Janell Hobson.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020041185 | ISBN 9780367198374 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429243578 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women, BlackHistory. | Women, BlackSocial conditions. | Women, BlackSocial life and customs.
Classification: LCC HQ1163 .R68 2021 | DDC 305.48/896dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020041185
ISBN: 978-0-367-19837-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-70755-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-24357-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
In memory of Carmen R. Gillespie
Contents
PART I
A fragmented past, an inclusive future
Monica Hanna
Solange Ashby
Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban
Paul H.D. Kaplan
Nicholas R. Jones
Joyce Green MacDonald
Daniel F. Silva
PART II
Contested histories, subversive memories
Aje-Ori Agbese
Beverly Mack
Denise A. Spellberg
Jennifer Thorn
Annette Gordon-Reed
Nathan H. Dize
James Smalls
PART III
Gendered lives, racial frameworks
Robin Mitchell
Vanessa M. Holden
Michele Reid-Vazquez
Nneka D. Dennie
Barbara McCaskill
Maya Cunningham
Allison O. Ramsay
PART IV
Cultural shifts, social change
Lynne Ellsworth Larsen
Naaborko Sackeyfio-Lenoch
Egodi Uchendu and Uche Okonkwo
Claire Oberon Garcia
Carole Boyce-Davies
Nicholas Grant
Jenn M. Jackson
PART V
Black identities, feminist formations
Amade Mcharek
Kyra D. Gaunt
Valquria Pereira Tenrio and Flvia Alessandra de Souza
Elizabeth Prez
Carmen R. Gillespie
Janell Hobson and Donna E. Young
Gretchen Bauer
Map of ancient Nubia. Reprinted courtesy of American University in Cairo Press |
Amanitore bark stand from Wad ban Naqa. gyptisches Museum, Berlin. Sandra Stei gyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung |