Terrion L. Williamson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823274727
- eISBN:
- 9780823274772
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823274727.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
The introduction makes the case for black feminist practice as a study of black sociality by way of a personal narrative that explores the terrain of meaning between thought and practice, feminism ...
More
The introduction makes the case for black feminist practice as a study of black sociality by way of a personal narrative that explores the terrain of meaning between thought and practice, feminism and feminist practice, and social life and social death. It consequently outlines the parameters of the book’s primary argument that the logics of representation, which are typically coded by terms such as value, visibility, citizenship, diversity, respectability and responsibility, largely fails to account for the reality of lived black experience. As such, there is a need to consider black social life from the perspective of those who are most closely attuned to and identified with the indicia of blackness.Less
The introduction makes the case for black feminist practice as a study of black sociality by way of a personal narrative that explores the terrain of meaning between thought and practice, feminism and feminist practice, and social life and social death. It consequently outlines the parameters of the book’s primary argument that the logics of representation, which are typically coded by terms such as value, visibility, citizenship, diversity, respectability and responsibility, largely fails to account for the reality of lived black experience. As such, there is a need to consider black social life from the perspective of those who are most closely attuned to and identified with the indicia of blackness.
Terrion L. Williamson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823274727
- eISBN:
- 9780823274772
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823274727.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
From sapphire, mammy, and jezebel to the angry black woman, baby mama, and nappy-headed ho, black female iconography has had a long and tortured history in public culture. The telling of this history ...
More
From sapphire, mammy, and jezebel to the angry black woman, baby mama, and nappy-headed ho, black female iconography has had a long and tortured history in public culture. The telling of this history has long occupied the work of black female theorists—much of which has been foundational in situating black women within the matrix of sociopolitical thought and practice in the United States. Scandalize My Name builds upon the rich tradition of this work while taking a detour from conventional stereotype discourse to argue that black social life defies the limitations of representational thought and practice. By approaching the study of black female representation not as a mechanism of negative or positive valuation but as an opening onto a serious contemplation of the vagaries of black social life, Williamson makes a case for a radical black subject position that structures and is structured by an amorphous social order that ultimately destabilizes the very notion of “civil society.” At turns memoir, sociological inquiry, literary analysis, and cultural critique, Scandalize My Name explores topics as varied as serial murder, reality television, Christian evangelism, and the novels of Toni Morrison, to advance black feminist practice as a modality through which black sociality is both theorized and made material.Less
From sapphire, mammy, and jezebel to the angry black woman, baby mama, and nappy-headed ho, black female iconography has had a long and tortured history in public culture. The telling of this history has long occupied the work of black female theorists—much of which has been foundational in situating black women within the matrix of sociopolitical thought and practice in the United States. Scandalize My Name builds upon the rich tradition of this work while taking a detour from conventional stereotype discourse to argue that black social life defies the limitations of representational thought and practice. By approaching the study of black female representation not as a mechanism of negative or positive valuation but as an opening onto a serious contemplation of the vagaries of black social life, Williamson makes a case for a radical black subject position that structures and is structured by an amorphous social order that ultimately destabilizes the very notion of “civil society.” At turns memoir, sociological inquiry, literary analysis, and cultural critique, Scandalize My Name explores topics as varied as serial murder, reality television, Christian evangelism, and the novels of Toni Morrison, to advance black feminist practice as a modality through which black sociality is both theorized and made material.
Terrion L. Williamson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823274727
- eISBN:
- 9780823274772
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823274727.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
The conclusion ends with a personal narrative that is tied to the narrative that opens the book. It contends that “home” is an inaugural space of black feminist practice, and that because of the ...
More
The conclusion ends with a personal narrative that is tied to the narrative that opens the book. It contends that “home” is an inaugural space of black feminist practice, and that because of the significance of home, which extends beyond the immediate and relational to the extended and communal, as a site of analysis, reckoning with it is an important endeavor in theorizing blackness and black social life.Less
The conclusion ends with a personal narrative that is tied to the narrative that opens the book. It contends that “home” is an inaugural space of black feminist practice, and that because of the significance of home, which extends beyond the immediate and relational to the extended and communal, as a site of analysis, reckoning with it is an important endeavor in theorizing blackness and black social life.
