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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

Romancing The University: Bipoc Scholars In Romance Novels In The 1980s And Now, Jayashree Kamble Dec 2023

Romancing The University: Bipoc Scholars In Romance Novels In The 1980s And Now, Jayashree Kamble

Publications and Research

English-language mass-market romance novels written by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) writers and starring BIPOC protagonists are a small but important group. This article is a comparative analysis of how recent representations of diversity in this sub-set of the genre, specifically the character of the Black academic and the language of racial justice, compare with the first group of BIPOC novels that were published in 1984 (Sandra Kitt’s Adam and Eva and All Good Things as well as Barbara Stephens’s A Toast to Love). In Adrianna Herrera’s American Love Story (2019), Katrina Jackson’s Office Hours (2020), and …


“9/11 And The Collapse Of The American Dream: Imbolo Mbue’S Behold The Dreamers”, Elizabeth Toohey Dec 2020

“9/11 And The Collapse Of The American Dream: Imbolo Mbue’S Behold The Dreamers”, Elizabeth Toohey

Publications and Research

Behold the Dreamers follows a Cameroonian couple who, as newcomers to America, harbor dreams of success unavailable to them back home. Undocumented immigration, the widening gulf between rich and poor, and the thinly veiled racism of an avowedly "post-racial" culture converge in this new generation of immigrants' painful encounter with the American dream. I consider the ways Mbue's novel shares themes with a "second wave" of post- 9/11 literature—first, in centering the disillusionment of a protagonist aspiring to the American dream; next, in its representation of New York as a space haunted by 9/11, but also of resistance to the …


The Making And Silencing Of “Axé-Ocracy” In Brazil: Black Women Writers’ Spiritual, Political And Literary Movement In São Paulo, Sarah S. Ohmer Oct 2019

The Making And Silencing Of “Axé-Ocracy” In Brazil: Black Women Writers’ Spiritual, Political And Literary Movement In São Paulo, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In this article, I will focus on two influential writers from the south of Brazil, Cristiane Sobral who currently lives in Brasília, from Rio de Janeiro, and Conceição Evaristo who currently lives in Rio de Janeiro state, from Minas Gerais. I got to know them in São Paulo in 2015 at a public event: the “Afroétnica Flink! Sampa Festival of Black Thought, Literature and Culture.” I will include references to some of their younger contemporaries such as Raquel Almeida, Jenyffer Nascimento, and Elizandra Souza, all of whom reside in São Paulo, in order to illustrate the Black Brazilian women writers’ …


The Evidence Of Things Unseen: Experimental Form As Black Feminist Praxis, Shelly J. Eversley Oct 2018

The Evidence Of Things Unseen: Experimental Form As Black Feminist Praxis, Shelly J. Eversley

Publications and Research

This essay reads Carlene Hatcher Polite's little-known experimental novel Sister X and the Victims of Foul Play and situates it within Black Aesthetics and black feminist theory to argue that experimental forms is crucial to black feminist praxis. The form also exposes critical violences that not only diminish and obscure black feminist writing, but also black women writers.


Jam On The Vine By Lashonda Barnett, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz Jul 2016

Jam On The Vine By Lashonda Barnett, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

Book review of Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Barnett from the perspective of a lesbian and lesbian of color audience of readers.


Introduction: The 1970s, Shelly J. Eversley, Michelle Habell-Pallán Oct 2015

Introduction: The 1970s, Shelly J. Eversley, Michelle Habell-Pallán

Publications and Research

Introduction to special issue, "The 1970s," of WSQ (Women's Studies Quarterly), edited by Shelly Eversley and Michelle Habell-Pallán.


Opening Remarks To Outing Lorraine At The Schomburg Center, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz May 2014

Opening Remarks To Outing Lorraine At The Schomburg Center, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

This article is an edit of the opening remarks for the event held on May 22nd, 2014 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as part of the In The Life Series supplying Black LGBT programming coordinated by Steven Fullwood. Outing Lorraine included panelists: Alexis DeVeaux, Joi Gresham, and Steven Fullwood and was moderated by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz. Opening remarks provide a biographical description of Lorraine Hansberry's life, prepare the audience for a conversation on the implications for "outing" a black iconic figure, details the purpose for use of primary and secondary sources when, and provides a bibliography for …


Introduction: The Sexual Body, Shelly J. Eversley, Jennifer L. Morgan Apr 2007

Introduction: The Sexual Body, Shelly J. Eversley, Jennifer L. Morgan

Publications and Research

Introduction to the special issue, "The Sexual Body," edited by Shelly Eversley and Jennifer L. Morgan.