Navigation
Bibliography > Featured > IN FOCUS: WOMEN
Witness to the League of Blond Hip Hop Dancers
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | Witness to the League of Blond Hip Hop Dancers |
| Author: | Allegra, Donna |
| Publisher: | Alyson Publications, Inc., Boston |
| Copyright: | 2000 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1555835503 |
| Image/Cover: |  |
| Abstract/Synopsis: | All but one of the 13 stories in this collection are set in a dance studio in New York City, and in each the first-person protagonist, an African-American lesbian, must sort through issues of desire and race in her interaction with the other dancers. In the title novella, Akiba and KT attempt to choreograph a piece together in a bid to be accepted into a new dance company, knowing all the time "they're not going to take both of us... Not two entirely real-life Black women." Here and elsewhere, Allegra offers no easy answers; these black dancers live in a racist society in which West African and African-American music and dance have been co-opted by a white society that would prefer their originators to remain invisible. Two of the storiesA"God Lies in the Details" and "Dance of the Cranes"Aare narrated by adolescent women just coming into their sexual identities with the help of more mature role models, but the other narrators are older. Stubborn, tenacious women who define themselves as butch and work in offices to support their art, they have learned to sniff out racism with something like "a heightened sense of smell," as Akiba puts it. While the similar settings, narrators and themes provide a sense of unity, when the stories are read one after the other their monotony takes a toll. This repetitiousness and the proliferation of dogmatic speeches on race, gender or sexual preference keep the tales from elevating much above the level of consciousness-raising exercises. |
The Treatment of Women in the Hip-Hop Community
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | The Treatment of Women in the Hip-Hop Community: Past, Present and Future |
| Author: | Babb, Tracie |
| Publisher: | Fordham University, New York |
| Copyright: | 2002 |
Reconstructing Womanhood
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist |
| Author: | Carby, Hazel |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press, Oxford |
| Copyright: | 1995 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 195060717 |
| Image/Cover: |  |
| Abstract/Synopsis: | A cultural history of the work of nineteenth-century black women writers, this volume traces the emergence of the novel as a forum for political and cultural reconstruction, examining the ways in which dominant sexual ideologies influenced the literary conventions of women's fiction, and reassessing the uses of fiction in American culture. Carby revises the history of the period of Jim Crow and Booker T. Washington, depicting a time of intense cultural and political activity by such black women writers as Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Pauline Hopkins. |
Order on Amazon.com
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude |
| Author: | Davis, Angela Y. |
| Publisher: | Vintage , New York |
| Copyright: | 1999 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 679771263 |
| Image/Cover: |  |
| Abstract/Synopsis: | The female blues singers of the 1920s, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, and Bessie Smith, not only invented a musical genre, but they also became models of how African American women could become economically independent in a culture that had not previously allowed it. Both Smith and Rainey composed, arranged, and managed their own road bands. Angela Y. Davis's study emphasizes the impact that these singers, and later Billie Holiday, had on the poor and working-class communities from which they came. The artists addressed radical subjects such as physical and economic abuse, race relations, and female sexual power, including lesbianism. Ma Rainey was well known as a lover of women as well as men, and her song "Prove It on Me" describes a butch woman who dresses like a man and dates women. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism places the fluid sexuality of these women within a larger context of African American artists' attempts to subvert and recreate America. |
| Pages: | 464 |
Order on Amazon.com
Gender Noise
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | Gender Noise: Community Formation, Identity and Gender Analysis in Rap Music |
| Author: | DeBerry, Stephen |
| Publisher: | University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles |
| Copyright: | 1995 |
The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes From Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes From Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop |
| Author: | Gaunt, Kyra D. |
| Publisher: | New York University Press, New York |
| Copyright: | 2006 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2147483647 |
| Image/Cover: |  |
| Abstract/Synopsis: | The Games Black Girls Play illustrates how black musical styles are incorporated into the earliest games African American girls learn--how, in effect, these games contain the DNA of black music. Drawing on interviews, recordings of handclapping games and cheers, and her own observation and memories of gameplaying, Kyra D. Gaunt argues that black girls' games are connected to long traditions of African and African American musicmaking, and that they teach vital musical and social lessons that are carried into adulthood. In this celebration of playground poetry and childhood choreography, she uncovers the surprisingly rich contributions of girls' play to black popular culture. |
| Copies at the Archive: | 1 |
Order on Amazon.com
Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism |
| Author: | Hernandez, Daisy |
| Co-authors: | Rehman, Bushra |
| Publisher: | Seal Press, Emeryville |
| Copyright: | 2002 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1580050670 |
| Image/Cover: |  |
| Abstract/Synopsis: | Ms. magazine columnist Hernandez and former Muslim poet Rehman, both feminist activists, have assembled a broad collection of essays by young women writers, academics, and activists from a range of cultures and sexual orientations. A few essays have a very specialized focus, describing such experiences as a Chicana with HIV and a Native American woman participating in the typically male War Dance ceremony. More often the contributors look more generally at their lives and families and consider how these experiences have influenced their understanding of feminism. Several writers critique "white, middle class feminism" for failing to take into account the impact of classism and racism on women of color. One essay discusses the impact of gentrification on poor, single mothers; another tells of the author's immigrant mother turning to sex work to support her daughters. Cultural and religious customs are discussed by a Nigerian woman who comes to the United States for college and by an Indian American woman who is expected to pursue an arranged marriage. These are very personal, interesting, and readable essays. Recommended for large public and academic libraries. |
| Pages: | 320 |
Order on Amazon.com
From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism |
| Author: | Hill Collins, Patricia |
| Publisher: | Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA |
| Copyright: | 2006 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1592130925 |
| Image/Cover: |  |
| Abstract/Synopsis: | Despite legislation designed to eliminate unfair racial practices, the United States continues to struggle with a race problem. Some thinkers label this a "new" racism and call for new political responses to it. Using the experiences of African American women and men as a touchstone for analysis, Patricia Hill Collins examines new forms of racism as well as political responses to it. In this incisive and stimulating book, renowned social theorist Patricia Hill Collins investigates how nationalism has operated and re-emerged in the wake of contemporary globalization and offers an interpretation of how black nationalism works today in the wake of changing black youth identity. Hers is the first study to analyze the interplay of racism, nationalism, and feminism in the context of twenty-first century black America. From Black Power to Hip Hop covers a wide range of topics including the significance of race and ethnicity to the American national identity; how ideas about motherhood affect population policies; African American use of black nationalism ideologies as anti-racist practice; and the relationship between black nationalism, feminism, and women in the hip-hop generation. |
| Copies at the Archive: | 1 |
Order on Amazon.com
A Bad Woman Feeling Good
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sang Them |
| Author: | Jackson, Buzzy |
| Publisher: | W.W. Norton &Company, New York |
| Copyright: | 2005 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 393059367 |
| Image/Cover: |  |
| Pages: | 319 |
Order on Amazon.com
Gender Talk
Posted on September 18, 2008 - 7:48pm — archive_staff| Title: | Gender Talk: The Struggle For Women's Equality in African American Communities |
| Author: | Johnnetta Betsch, Cole |
| Co-authors: | Beverly Guy-Sheftall |
| Publisher: | Ballantine, New York |
| Copyright: | 2003 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 978 |
| Image/Cover: |  |
| Abstract/Synopsis: | Two of America's leading African-American intellectuals provide the most comprehensive critique to date of the state of relations between Black men and women. Dr. Johnetta Cole and Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall argue that, in the 21st century, the condition of Black women must be addressed alongside the condition of Black men. Drs. Cole and Guy-Sheftall bring unique qualifications to this book as scholars, feminists, and intellectual leaders. They examine the historical conflict between race and gender issues in the Black community, the impact of feminism, the role of the Black Church, attitudes about sexuality, and popular culture including hip-hop. The authors boldly assert that, without attention to these matters, there can be no long-lasting solution to many of the community's race problems. They point to the impact of sexism on the oppression of Black women, including male dominance within Black communities. Beginning with their own gender talk and examining how their own childhoods and adult experiences have led them to feminism, they also include the voices of a large and influential group of African-American men and women who speak openly of gender issues including bell hooks, Kevin Powell, Cornel West, Byllye Avery, Robin DG Kelley, Faye Wattleton, Tricia Rose, and Dorothy Height (President of the National Council of Negro Women for more than 40 years). Dr. Johnetta B. Cole is the President of Bennett College; Beverly Guy-Sheftall is the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies and English and the Director of the Women's Research and Resource Center at Spelman College. |
| Pages: | 336 |
Order on Amazon.com