The Souths in her : Black women writers and choreographers and the poetics of transmutation / Nicole M. Morris Johnson.

Author/creator Morris Johnson, Nicole M. author.
Format Book
PublicationNew York : Columbia University Press, [2026]
Description261 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Subjects
American literature--African American authors. --History and criticism.
American literature--Women authors. --History and criticism.
American literature--20th century. --History and criticism.
Literature--Black authors. --History and criticism.
Literature, Modern--20th century. --History and criticism.
African American dance--20th century. --History and criticism.
African Americans--Intellectual life. --20th century.
Black people--Intellectual life. --20th century.
African diaspora.

SeriesBlack lives in the diaspora: past/present/future
Black lives in the diaspora.
Contents Introduction. On emergence : sounding beyond the womb abyss -- 1. On authoritative wandering : Hurston and Dunham -- 2. On dynamic suggestion : Hurston and McIntyre -- 3. On unincorporable strange sound : Condé and Shange -- 4. On autofictional subjectivity : Condé and Kincaid -- Conclusion : on muck horizons.
Abstract "Since the Middle Passage, the intellectual and physical freedom of Black women in the United States and the Caribbean has been constrained. In the face of this, Black women writers, artists, and performers have challenged silencing narrative frames by drawing on the traditions and artistic visions coming out of multiple Souths (the Southern US and Caribbean) as well as Africa. These interactions, whether physical, ideological, or imaginary, have played a key role in developing an alternative intellectual and political tradition drawn on by Black women writers, artists, and dancers. In The Souths in Her, a phrase borrowed from Ntozake Shange, Johnson examines the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham, Maryse Conde, Jamaica Kincaid, Kara Walker, and others to illustrate the multiple ways that twentieth-century Black women artists make singular contributions to Black liberation movements. In studying the violent enclosures routinely inflicted upon Black women alongside their expressive innovations, a transmuted "South" emerges: a blueprint of techniques for weaving liberatory works. The women featured in this book emerge with a transformed relationship to the enclosing narrative frames imposed upon them, and with reconceptualized movement and expressive vocabularies informed by the lived experiences and submerged histories of women across the Africana southern world."-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages [243]-251) and index.
Issued in other formebook version : 9780231562843
Genre/formLiterary criticism.
Genre/formCritiques litteĢraires.
LCCN 2025034638
ISBN9780231219686
ISBN9780231219679 hardcover
ISBN0231219679 hardcover
ISBN0231219687 trade paperback
ISBNelectronic book
ISBN9780231565035 (pdf)
ISBN0231565038

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