Full Description
The Gloria Wekker Reader compiles articles, essays, interviews, poems, and letters by the Afro-Surinamese Dutch theorist and activist, Gloria Wekker. Wekker is a preeminent scholar in feminist Black diaspora studies, especially known for her developments in epistemology and methodology, conceptualizations of sexuality, and mapping of the connections between race, gender, and empire. These writings demonstrate Wekker's theoretical and political prowess, illuminating how her scholarship was foundational in shifting the fields of anthropology, feminist and queer studies, and Black diasporic studies. Featuring a foreword by Angela Y. Davis, engaging with The Gloria Wekker Reader is an invitation for interdisciplinary and intergenerational dialogue to inspire political action.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Foreword / Angela Y. Davis xi
Introduction: Gloria Wekker—Crafting Alternative Cultural Archives, Shaping Biracial Intimacies / Chandra Frank, Nancy Jouwe, and Mikki Stelder 1
Part I: Sexuality on the Move
Introduction / Roderick Ferguson
Tower of Babel on the Suriname River (1997)
1. Sexuality on the Move 31
2. What's Identity Got to Do with It? Rethinking Identity in Light of the Mati Work in Suriname 73
3. Afro-Surinamese Women's Sexual Culture and the Long Shadow of the Past 93
4. One Finger Does Not Drink Okra Soup: Afro-Surinamese Women and Critical Agency 113
5. Politics and Passion: In Conversation with Gloria Wekker / Andil Gosine 143
6. The Coded Language of Hottentot Nymphae and the Discursive Presence of Race, 1917 155
Part II. Black Europe
Introduction / Gail Lewis
Denial
7. Survivors: Portrait of the Group Sister Outsider 197
8. Another Dream of a Common Language: Imagining Black Europe 209
9. What Happens to Black Africa in the Afro-Surinamese Transatlantic Diaspora? 223
10. Afropessimism 233
Part III. The Cultural Archive
Introduction / Sudeep Dasgupta
Acknowledgment
11. How Families Navigate Empire 255
12. Introduction to White Innocence 263
13. A Wind-Swept Plain: The History of Gender and Ethnicity-Thought in the Netherlands (with Helma Lutz) 297
14. White Innocence: Reflections on Public Debates and Political-Analytical Challenges. An Interview with Gloria Wekker, Nella van den Brandt, Lieke Schrijvers, Amal Miri, and Nawal Mustafa 325
15. Diving into the Wreck: Exploring Intersections of Sexuality, "Race," Gender, and Class in the Dutch Cultural Archive 343
16. Building Nests in a Windy Place: Thinking on Gender and Ethnicity in the Netherlands 365
Part IV: Transnational Feminism
Introduction / Fatima El-Tayeb
Transatlantic (1998)
17. Naming Ourselves as Black Women in Europe: An African American-German and Afro-Dutch Conversation (with Cassandra Ellerbe-Dueck) 391
18. A Letter of Audre Lorde 411
19. Still Crazy After All Those Years . . . Feminism for the New Millennium 413
20. "How Does One Survive the University as a Space Invader?": Beyond White Innocence in the Academy 427
21. Reading Obama: Collective Responsibilities and the Politics of Tears (with M. Jacqui Alexander and Gail Lewis) 443
Contributors 465
Index
