Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction: Black Women Writing under Segregation

Synopsis

Radical Black feminist refusal through the works of mid-twentieth-century African American women writers Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction offers new and insightful readings of African American women&’s writings in the 1930s–1950s, illustrating how these writers centered Black women&’s satisfaction as radical resistance to the false and incomplete promise of liberal racial integration. Eve Dunbar examines the writings of Ann Petry, Dorothy West, Alice Childress, and Gwendolyn Brooks to show how these women explored self-fulfillment over normative and sanctioned models of national belonging. Paying close attention to literary moments of disruption, miscommunication, or confusion rather than ease, assimilation, or mutual understanding around race and gender, Dunbar tracks these writers&’ dissatisfaction with American race relations. She shows how Petry, West, Childress, and Brooks redeploy the idea of monstrous work to offer potential modalities for registering Black women&’s capacity to locate satisfaction within the domestic and interpersonal. While racial integration may satisfy the national idea of equality and inclusion, it has not met the long-term needs of Black people&’s quest for equity. Dunbar responds, demonstrating how these mid-century women offer new blueprints for Black life by creating narrative models for radical satisfaction: Black women&’s completeness, joy, and happiness outside the bounds of normative racial inclusion.

Copyright:

2024

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781452972398

Related ISBNs:

9781517917876

Publisher:

University of Minnesota Press

Date of Addition:

11/05/24

Copyrighted By:

the Regents of the University of Minnesota.

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.