The Souths in Her

Black Women Writers and Choreographers and the Poetics of Transmutation
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-0-231-21968-6
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Reihe: Black Lives in the Diaspora: Past / Present / Future

Since the Middle Passage, the intellectual and physical freedom of Black women in the United States and the Caribbean has been constrained. Yet Black women writers, artists, choreographers, and performers have contested pervasive political, cultural, and discursive silencing by drawing on the traditions and creative visions of multiple Souths: the Southern United States and the Caribbean, as well as Africa.

In The Souths in Her—a phrase borrowed from Ntozake Shange—Nicole M. Morris Johnson shows how key Black women artists transformed the enclosing narrative frames imposed on them, developing new forms of creative expression informed by the lived experiences and submerged histories of women across the Africana southern world. She analyzes the intertwined relationship between movement and writing in the works of Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham, Dianne McIntyre, Maryse Condé, and Shange, among others. Morris Johnson demonstrates that although the central role of motion reinforced perceptions of primitivity that relegated Black women and the South to a space outside modernity, it was in fact crucial to their formal innovations. For these writers and choreographers, unexpected encounters with unfamiliar traditions and creative visions of multiple Souths catalyzed formal experimentation and movements for liberation. Considering the violence routinely inflicted on Black women alongside their artistic innovations, this book reveals a transmuted South that is rich in techniques for weaving liberatory works. Illuminating Black women’s singular contributions to Black modernity, The Souths in Her offers new frames for understanding their embodied and textual creative expression.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morris Johnson, Nicole M.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Tanz Ballett, Modern Dance
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Romanische Literaturen Lateinamerikanische Literaturen, Spanische Literatur außerhalb Europas
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Nicole M. Morris Johnson is an assistant professor of English at the University at Buffalo.