Catherine A. John, Department of Africana Studies
Catherine John argues that, in a series of ironies, negative stereotypes of Black female gender identity have laid the foundation for something new: a gender identity that defies containment. This talk situates the “attitude” associated with excessive Black femininity within the contexts of the work of Jamaican scholar Sylvia Wynter, African American scholar Hortense Spillers and Afro-Brazilian scholar Denise Ferreira da Silva. Ferreira da Silva’s notion that Black women “neither comply [with] nor disappear [from]” the hegemonic order will be used to explore the shifting ground between invisibility and a disruptive power that can be deployed for either creative or destructive purposes. Among other things, this presentation will ponder what gendered solidarity looks like with these rebellious new subjects.
John’s talk, which was presented recently at the Modern Language Association conference in January ’24, is in part also explored in an article forthcoming in fall 2024 in Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, entitled, “Insurgent Attitude and the Shifting Ground of the Black Feminine.” This piece has also been influenced arguments made in the chapter, “ÌYÁ but not Woman: A Grassroots Formulation of the Afrospora Feminine,” from John’s forthcoming manuscript Afroindigenization: Marasa Consciousness in the Afrospora.