Left Turns in Brown Study

Sandra Ruiz's Left Turns in Brown Study explores the interlacing forms of study and mourning, proposing "brown study" as a key for understanding how Brownness harbors loss and suffering and the possibility for more abundant ways of living. It engages with hauntings, ghosts, and spectral presences, from deceased teachers, illiterate ancestors, and victims of institutional and colonial violence.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 152 pages
Publication date: 02 August 2024
Publisher: Duke University Press

Left Turns in Brown Study by Sandra Ruiz is a poetic-theoretical exploration of the interconnected forms of study and mourning. Ruiz draws on Black and Brown activism and theory, blending poetry, memoir, lyrical essay, and vignettes to examine study as a liberatory practice. She proposes "brown study" as a key to understanding how Brownness encompasses loss and suffering while also offering the potential for more abundant ways of living. Ruiz invites readers to turn left into the sounds, phrases, and principles of anticolonial ways of reading, writing, citing, and listening. Through this journey, Ruiz engages with a range of hauntings, ghosts, and spectral presences, including deceased teachers, illiterate ancestors, and victims of institutional and colonial violence. Study is a shared movement, and Brownness thrives in citation. This book is essential for those who theorize minoritarian literary aesthetics and contemplate utopia, queer possibility, and the intertwining of forms.

Weight: 232g
Dimension: 151 x 229 x 12 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478030126