Philosopher and organizer Joy James examines the lives of the ‘Captive Maternals’ – those racialized and ‘feminized’ into roles of caretaking and consumption, yet compelled to transform through care, protest and movement-making, towards building safe communities to resist war and fascism. Shaped by enslavement, colonialism, rape and resistance (whether female, male, trans or nonbinary), they are integral to the weaving of rebel tapestries.
From domestic upheavals, through cultural revolution and police/military violence, James excavates hidden layers beneath seemingly ordinary narratives, including her biography as a ‘military brat’ radicalized by socialists, communists, feminists and Black Panther veterans. She deftly draws upon the literary writers on whose shoulders she stands – Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison, and the politics of Ella Baker, George Jackson and Assata Shakur, Mamie Till Mobley and Ida B. Wells.
The Captive Maternal navigates a powerful terrain where Black/feminist/socialist and anti-carceral studies and organizing converge. Reshaping understandings of power, resilience, and enduring struggles for liberation and justice, James’s groundbreaking analytic meditates on revolutionary love, mutations of rebellion, and the fulcra that leverage opposition to violence.
Mục lục
Preface: Family Training Grounds
Introduction: “The United Front Against Fascism”
Americana Runaways
1. Antebellum Austin Reed and the Contemporary Traumatized Child
2. (After)Lives of Sally Hemings, Michelle Obama & Deborah Danner within the 2021 Capitol Siege
3. Imperial State Feminism Disciplines Impacted Black Mothers
Renegade Culture Refuses Integration
4. Domestic Disturbance Oscars: Mammy, Leticia Musgrove, Mary
5. (Counter)Revolutionary Storytellers: Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison & Black Panther
6. Embattled Black Entertainment: Aretha Franklin and Dave Chappelle
Anti-Fascist Rebels in War Resistance
7. Ida B. Wells Anticipates Fanon’s “Hence Forward” Moment
8. Blood in My Eye: Georgia Jackson’s Sons
9. Abort or Birth?: Guerrilla Womb Theory
Conclusion: Womb Theory’s Black Matrix Confronts White Boss Theory: A Captive Maternal View of Kojeve’s Introduction to a Reading of Hegel
Bibliography
Index
Giới thiệu về tác giả
Joy James is the Ebenezer Fitch Professor of the Humanities at Williams College. She is the author of The Captive Maternal, In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love, New Bones Abolition, Contextualizing Angela Davis and the editor of the Angela Y. Davis Reader.