Graduate Course Description

Reading Sex in Black Women's Literary & Cultural Production

Extra, Naomi

In the 1992 article “Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality,” Evelynn Hammonds wrote about the urgent need for “the silence about sexuality on the part of black women academics” to be addressed. In this course we will read a series of texts that speak to not only the silences on black women’s sexuality but also the various methods and practices that black scholars, writers and cultural producers have used to read, theorize on, and articulate sex. Through readings, discussions, and written assignments, we will work to untangle the historical genealogies of key terms—like “the erotic” and “pleasure”— that have emerged within contemporary black feminist discourse in the past several decades. Over the course of the semester, some of the questions we will address are: What kinds of approaches have scholars and writers used to read and write sex in black women’s literary and cultural production? What do the theories, methods and reading practices employed by black feminists when it comes to sex tell us about archival desire? In order to address these questions, we will think across discipline and time period. Possible texts include: “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book” by Hortense J. Spillers, Color, Sex, and Poetry by Gloria T. Hull, Loving Her by Ann Allen Shockley, His Own Where by June Jordan, “They Say I Write Sex for Money” by Red Jordan Arobateau, The Black Body in Ecstasy by Jennifer C. Nash, and Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins.