Hostname: page-component-669899f699-chc8l Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-29T23:53:44.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Black Feminist Me: Answering the Question ‘Who Do I Think I Am’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Kristie Dotson
Kristie Dotson*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University, USA
*
Kristie Dotson, Department of Philosophy, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1032, USA. Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

In this paper, I offer a partial picture of my conceptual location as a US black feminist, professional philosopher and, by doing so, illustrate one of the ways Africana philosophy is being shaped and engaged. I offer a portrait of my conceptual location by identifying a value shared by some ‘anti-theory’ black feminists and some Africana professional philosophers in the US that ultimately recommends a consistent engagement in black feminist/philosophical praxis.

Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 59 , Issue 3-4: Africana Philosophy , November 2012 , pp. 82 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aziz, R (1992) ‘Feminsim and the Challenge of Racism: Deviance or Difference?’ in Crowley, H, Himmelweit, S (eds), Knowing Women: Feminism and Knowledge, pp. 291–305. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Chay, D G (1993a) ‘Deborah Chay's Reply,’ New Literary History, 24(3): 656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chay, D G (1993b) ‘Rereading Barbara Smith: Black Feminist Criticism and the Category of Experience,’ New Literary History, 24(3): 635–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christian, B (1988) ‘The Race for Theory,’ Feminist Studies, 14(1): 67–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christian, B (1994) ‘Diminishing Returns: Can Black Feminism(s) Survive the Academy?’ in Goldberg, D T (ed.), Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Christian, B (2007) ‘But Who Do You Really Belong to – Black Studies or Women's Studies?’ in Norment, N J (ed.), The African American Studies Reader, pp. 225–228. Durham: Carolina Academic Press.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, K (1989) ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,’ University of Chicago Legal Forum: 139–167.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, K (1991) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,’ Stanford Law Review, 43: 1241–1299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, C B (1994) Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
DuCille, A (2009) ‘Phallus(ies) of Interpretation: Toward Engendering the Black Critical “I”,’ in James, S M, Foster, F S, Guy-Sheftall, B (eds), Still Brave: The Evolution of Black Women's Studies, pp. 172–191. New York: The Feminist Press.Google Scholar
Gates, H L (1988) The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Ginzberg, R (1991) ‘Philosophy is Not a Luxury,’ in Card, C, (ed.), Feminist Ethics, pp. 126–145. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Griffin, F J (2007) ‘That the Mothers May Soar and the Daughters May Know Their Names: A Retrospective of Black Feminist Literary Criticism,’ Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 32(2): 483–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guy-Sheftall, B (2003) ‘Speaking for Ourselves: Feminisms in the African Diaspora,’ in Davies, C B (ed.), Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies, pp. 27–43. Trenton: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Harris, L (1997) ‘The Horror of Tradition or How to Burn Babylon and Build Benin While Reading Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note,’ in Pittman, J P (ed.), African-American Perspectives and Philosophical Traditions, pp. 94–118. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Higginbotham, E B (1992) ‘African American History and the Metalanguage of Race,’ Signs, 17: 251–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
hooks, b (1989) Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Jones, W R (1977–1978) ‘The Legitimacy and Necessity of Black Philosophy: Some Preliminary Considerations,’ The Philosophical Forum, 9(2–3): 149–160.Google Scholar
Jordan, J (1998) ‘Nobody Mean More to Me than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan,’ Harvard Education Review, 58(3): 363–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorde, A (1984) Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Lorde, A (2009a) ‘Difference and Survival: An Address at Hunter College,’ in Byrd, R P, Cole, J B, Guy-Sheftall, B (eds), I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, pp. 201–204. New York: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Lorde, A (2009b) ‘Poet as Teacher – Human as Poet – Teacher as Human,’ in Byrd, R P, Cole, J B, Guy-Sheftall, B (eds), I am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, pp. 182–183. New York: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Lorde, A (2009c) ‘Poetry Makes Something Happen,’ in Byrd, R P, Cole, J B, Guy-Sheftall, B (eds), I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, pp. 184–187. New York: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Lorde, A (2009d) ‘When Will the Ignorance End? Keynote Speech at the National Third World Gay and Lesbian Conference,’ in Byrd, R P, Cole, J B, Guy-Sheftall, B (eds), I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, pp. 207–210. New York: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Lorde, A (2009e) ‘Turning the Beat Around: Lesbian Parenting,’ in Bryd, R, Cole, J B, Guy-Sheftall, B (eds), I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, pp. 73–80. New York: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Lubiano, W (2002) ‘Standing in for the State: Black Nationalism and “Writing” the Black Subject,’ in Glaude, E S (ed.), Is It Nation Time? Contemporary Essays on Black Power and Black Nationalism, pp. 156–164. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, D E (1980) ‘New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism,’ Black American Literary Forum, 14(4): 153–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, D E (1995) “The Changing Same”: Black Women's Literature, Criticism, and Theory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.Google Scholar
McFadden, P (2002) ‘Intellectual Politics and Radical Feminist Praxis,’ Feminist Africa, 1; http://www.feministafrica.orgGoogle Scholar
Mills, C (1999) The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell UP.Google Scholar
Minh-Ha, T T (1986) ‘Difference: “A Special Third World Women Issue”,’ Discourse, 8: 11–37.Google Scholar
Nero, C (1991) ‘Toward a Black Gay Aesthetic: Signifying in Contemporary Black Gay Literature,’ in Hemphill, E (ed.), Brother to Brother: New Writings by Gay Black Men, pp. 229–251. Boston: Alyson Publications Inc.Google Scholar
Priest, G (2006) ‘What is Philosophy?,’ Philosophy, 81: 189–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rimstead, R (1995) ‘Between Theories and Anti-Theories: Moving toward Marginal Women's Subjectivities,’ Women's Studies Quarterly, 23(1/2): 199–218.Google Scholar
Smith, B (1993) ‘Reply to Deborah Chay,’ New Literary History, 24(3): 653–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, B (2001) ‘Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,’ in Bobo, J (ed.), Black Feminist Cultural Criticism, pp. 7–23. Malden: BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Smitherman, G (1986) Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black American. Detroit: Wayne State UP.Google Scholar
Tuana, N (2004) ‘Coming to Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance,’ Hypatia, 19(1): 194–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, M (1990) Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
West, C (1977–1978) ‘Philosophy and the Afro-American Experience,’ The Philosophical Forum, 9(2–3): 117–148.Google Scholar
West, C (1995) ‘The Black Underclass and Black Philosophers,’ in Hord, F L, Lee, J S (eds), I Am Because We Are: Readings in Black Philosophy, pp. 356–366. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar