The Routledge Companion to Black Women’s Cultural Histories

Description

In the social and cultural histories of women and feminism, Black women have long been overlooked or ignored. The Routledge Companion to Black Women’s 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 are 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 Women’s Cultural Histories is essential reading for students and researchers in Gender Studies, History, Africana Studies, and Cultural Studies. Dedication Contents List of figures List of contributors The Routledge Companion to Black Women’s Cultural Histories: An Introduction • Janell Hobson Part I: A fragmented past, an inclusive future 1 Women are from Africa and men are from Europe • Monica Hanna 2 Priestess, queen, goddess:The divine feminine in the kingdom of Kush • Solange Ashby 3 Queen Balqis,“Queen of Sheba” • Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban 4 Black women in early modern European art and culture • Paul H.D. Kaplan 5 Black women in early modern Spanish literature • Nicholas R. Jones 6 The legend of Lucy Negro • Joyce Green MacDonald 7 (Anti-)colonial assemblages:The history and reformulations of Njinga Mbande • Daniel F. Silva Part II: Contested histories, subversive memories 8 Preserving the memories of precolonial Nigeria: Cultural narratives of precolonial heroines • Aje-Ori Agbese 9 Nana Asma’u: A model for literate women Muslims • Beverly Mack 10 Finding “Fatima” among enslaved Muslim women in the antebellum United States • Denise A. Spellberg 11 Phillis Wheatley and New England slavery • Jennifer Thorn 12 Sally Hemings: Writing the life of an enslaved woman • Annette Gordon-Reed 13 The persistence of Félicité Kina in the world of the Haitian Revolution: Kinship, gender, and everyday resistance • Nathan H. Dize 14 The then and now of subjugation and empowerment: Marie Benoist’s Portrait d’une négresse (1800) • James Smalls Part III: Gendered lives, racial frameworks 15 A history of Black women in nineteenth-century France • Robin Mitchell 16 Living free: Self-emancipated women and queer formations of freedom • Vanessa M. Holden 17 “Blood, fire, and freedom”: Enslaved women and rebellion in nineteenth-century Cuba • Michele Reid-Vazquez 18 Black women and Africana abolitionism • Nneka D. Dennie 19 Ethiopia’s woke women: The nineteenth century re-imagines Africa • Barbara McCaskill 20 Singing power/sounding identity:The Black woman’s voice from hidden Hush Arbors to the popular • Maya Cunningham 21 Jamettes, mas, and bacchanal: A culture of resistance in Trinidad and Tobago • Allison O. Ramsay Part IV: Cultural shifts, social change 22 Wives and warriors:The royal women of Dahomey as representatives of the kingdom • Lynne Ellsworth Larsen 23 Reframing Yaa Asantewaa through the shifting paradigms of African historiography • Naaborko Sackeyfio-Lenoch 24 The Aba Women’s War of 1929 in Eastern Nigeria as anti-colonial protest • Egodi Uchendu and Uche Okonkwo 25 Black women writers in early twentieth-century Paris • Claire Oberon Garcia 26 The transnational Black feminist politics of Claudia Jones • Carole Boyce-Davies 27 Confronting apartheid: Black women’s internationalism in South Africa and the United States • Nicholas Grant 28 Black feminisms, queer feminisms, trans feminisms: Meditating on Pauli Murray, Shirley Chisholm, and Marsha P. Johnson against the erasure of history • Jenn M. Jackson Part V: Black identities, feminist formations 29 Traces of race, roots of gender: A genetic history • Amade M’charek 30 Is twerking African?: Dancing and diaspora as embodied knowledge on YouTube • Kyra D. Gaunt 31 Sites of resistance: Black women and beauty in Black Brazilian communities of São Paulo and Bahia • Valquíria Pereira Tenório and Flávia Alessandra de Souza 32 Hail to the chefs: Black women’s pedagogy, sacred kitchenspaces, and Afro-Diasporic religions • Elizabeth Pérez 33 Black women’s feminist literary renaissance of the late twentieth century • Carmen R. Gillespie 34 Black women, sexual violence, and resistance in the United States • Janell Hobson and Donna E.Young 35 African women’s political leadership: Global lessons for feminism • Gretchen Bauer Index