Politics and Affect in Black Women's Fiction

Kathy Glass is associate professor of English at Duquesne University.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter One: Love-Driven Politics in Frances Harper’s “The Two Offers”Chapter Two: “Do Unto Others”: De-Racializing the Golden Rule in Julia Collins’s The Curse of Caste; or The Slave BrideChapter Three: Nella Larsen’s Spiritual StrivingsChapter Four: On Blackness and Longing in Danzy Senna’s CaucasiaConclusionBibliography

Collectively, Glass illuminates texts that challenge racism and make visible the social and political value of love. The connection of the texts through the sociopolitical power of love is clear and relevant. . . As Glass ends with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s demand to acknowledge the pain of racism in urgent attention to intersectionality, she turns to a list of twentieth-century authors that also acknowledge the pain of racism. Concluding with the conditions of racism and homopho­bia noted by Audre Lorde, Glass returns the reader to the longstanding commitment to representing social justice in texts. Clearly, this study can encompass even more narratives and her commitment to reading these closely should be commended. This book is perhaps the most extensive study of affect in black women’s literature specifically. . .