Imagining the Black Female Body : Reconciling Image in Print and Visual Culture

This Volume Explores Issues Of Black Female Identity Through The Various Imaginings Of The Black Female Body In Print And Visual Culture. Offering An Exploration Of The Continuities And Discontinuities Of Subjectivity And Agency, This Collection Reveals Black Women's Expressivity As A Multilayered Enterprise, Liberating And Similarly Confining. Thus These Representations In Art, Literature, And Culture Perform A Delicate And Challenging Dance Of Redemption - A Redemption Necessary To Flesh Out The Precarious Dynamics Of Being Black And Female At The Turn Of This Century. Contributions Emphasize The Ways In Which The Black Female Body Is Framed And How Black Women (and Their Allies) Have Sought To Write Themselves Back Into Social Discourses On Their Terms. Racing Sexing, Sexing Race : The Invention Of The Black Feminine Body / Kaila Adia Story -- Disembodiments : Ellen Gallagher's Watery Metamorphoses / Ana Nunes -- Stigmata : Embodying The Scars Of Slavery / Venetria K. Patton -- Pull Up To The Bumper : Fashion And Queerness In Grace Jones' One Man Show / Maria J. Guzman -- Images That Sell : The Black Female Body Imag(in)ed In 1960s And 1970s Magazine Ads / Michelle L. Filling -- Women, For Women : Black Women, All Grown Up / Debra A. Powell-wright -- The Lower Stratum Of History : The Grotesque Comic Stereotypes Of Suzan-lori Parks And Kara Walker / Julie Burrell -- Navel-erasing : Androgyny And Self-making In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon And Jamaica Kincaid's The Autobiography Of My Mother / Stacie Selmon Mccormick -- If Rigor Is Our Dream : The Re-membering Of Violence By Black Women Writers Of The Harlem Renaissance / Zetta Elliott. Edited By Carol E. Henderson. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Introduction: Public Property: On Black Women, Bodies, and First Lady Michelle Obama......Page 16 1 Racing Sex—Sexing Race: The Invention of the Black Feminine Body......Page 38 2 Disembodiments: Ellen Gallagher's Watery Metamorphoses......Page 60 3 Stigmata: Embodying the Scars of Slavery......Page 74 4 "Pull Up to the Bumper": Fashion and Queerness in Grace Jones's One Man Show......Page 94 5 Images That Sell: The Black Female Body Imag(in)ed in 1960s and 1970s Magazine Ads......Page 110 6 Four Women, For Women: Black Women—All Grown Up......Page 124 7 The Lower Stratum of History: The Grotesque Comic Stereotypes of Suzan-Lori Parks and Kara Walker......Page 138 8 Navel-Erasing: Androgyny and Self-Making in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Jamaica Kincaid's: The Autobiography of My Mother......Page 160 9 "If Rigor Is Our Dream": The Re-Membering of Violence by Black Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance......Page 178 Afterword: "You ... You Remind Me of...": A Black Feminist's Rejection of the White Imagination......Page 206 Contributors......Page 222 Index......Page 226 This volume explores issues of black female identity through the various "imaginings" of the black female body in print and visual culture. Contributions emphasize the ways in which the black female body is framed and how black women (and their allies) have sought to write themselves back into social discourses on their terms. This volume explores issues of black female identity through the various "imaginings" of the black female body in print and visual culture. Offering an exploration of the continuities and discontinuities of subjectivity and agency, this collection reveals black women's expressivity as a multilayered enterprise, liberating and similarly confining. Thus these representations in art, literature, and culture perform a delicate and challenging dance of redemption - a redemption necessary to flesh out the precarious dynamics of being black and female at the turn of this century. Contributions emphasize the ways in which the black female body is framed and how black women (and their allies) have sought to write themselves back into social discourses on their terms