This Woman's Work

Osizwe Raena Jamila Harwell, Atlanta, Georgia, received her PhD in African American studies at Temple University. She is a veteran educator, consultant, and public scholar, whose work examines contemporary black women's activism, contemporary black fiction, and Africana gender and sexuality studies. She is a contributor to Womanism Rising: Womanist Studies Is Here!

In This Woman's Work, Osizwe Raena Jamila Harwell provides readers with the first full-length study of the work of Bebe Moore Campbell, the prolific, immensely popular, and politically-engaged writer whose career was cut short by her untimely death a decade ago. Through her insightful textual analyses and her careful theorizing of black feminist activism, Harwell brilliantly shows the subtle yet forceful ways Campbell's deeply-felt convictions found expression in her fiction. This Woman's Work will prompt scholars and general readers alike to explore or revisit Campbell's extraordinary body of work and to consider the complex relationship between politics and cultural production."" - Valerie Smith, president of Swarthmore College, author of Toni Morrison: Writing the Moral Imagination, and coeditor (with Adrienne Brown) of Race and Real Estate""Bravo to Osizwe Harwell for elevating the status of Bebe Moore Campbell to her rightful place as an icon of contemporary womanist and black feminist literary genius and activism! Campbell's exemplification of writing-as-activism and writing-as-healing have contributed to the survival and thriving of many, and Harwell has brilliantly elucidated the political and psychological value of Campbell's multi-level engagement with 'everyday folk.' Because of Harwell's scholarship on Campbell, we can now advance the cause of mental health activism as social justice activism with greater authority and sensitivity, at the same time as we uplift those authors whose gift is to transform the lives of diverse readerships through sophisticated yet relatable storytelling."" - Layli Maparyan, Katherine Stone Kaufmann '67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College and author of The Womanist Reader and The Womanist Idea