Black Feminism Archives - Public Seminar

Feminism

Reading Your bell hooks

Alone, together, or in community, this Black feminist icon always insisted on reading as a transformative act

February 16, 2022 • by Judy Pryor-Ramirez

bell hooks was blessed, and I believe that she transitioned to the land of milk and honey knowing how important her work was for so many people’s lives. Reading bell hooks is an action and a step towards personal and social transformation. ...

Activism

The Power of Black Feminist Pragmatism

Why the Black Lives Matter movement is the best alternative to the anti-democratic, white supremacist, authoritarian capture of the United States

January 20, 2022 • by Deva Woodly

The Black Lives Matter movement is not a “new social movement” that focuses on cultural transformation while eschewing policy intervention, nor is it fashioned after “old style,” “traditional” social movements that attempt to move policy while deemphasizing the need for deep changes in public understandings of the problems facing polities ...

History

Challenging the Perception of the Wayward Girl

An interview with Saidiya Hartman

April 21, 2020 • by Saidiya Hartman and Yannise Jean

Yannise Jean [YJ]: For this book, you took a different approach by structuring it like a fictional narrative. I think this structure really helps the reader get into the character's heads. Was this your intention during the outlining stages of your book? Saidiya Hartman [SH]: I write nonfiction. As I started to write ...

Challenging the Perception of the Wayward Girl

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Recognitions and Company

Reviewing Brittney Cooper’s ‘Eloquent Rage’

May 26, 2018 • by Wahneema Lubiano

My feelings, for their part, go on strike against me all the time, showing up with picket signs that scream truths I’d rather not hear, all while demanding that I renegotiate terms. —Brittney Cooper (Eloquent Rage, 204) What might one want when reading a personal narrative, a memoir, a story with multiple ...

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A Primary Moral Position

Black feminism and self possession

February 23, 2018 • by Christopher Lebron

Race/isms Book Forum is a new series aimed at bringing established and emerging voices together in conversation around recent work that critically engages our world’s racial scripts, past and present. The structure of the forum is straightforward. We invite three to four thinkers to grapple with a book, highlighting a section ...

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Is Equality Enough?

Black feminist views of justice

February 22, 2018 • by Deva Woodly

Race/isms Book Forum is a new series aimed at bringing established and emerging voices together in conversation around recent work that critically engages our world’s racial scripts, past and present. The structure of the forum is straightforward. We invite three to four thinkers to grapple with a book, highlighting a section ...