The Black Reproductive: Unfree Labor and Insurgent Motherhood

Black womens reproduction has been used to support white supremacy, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy, but it can also destabilize these systems. The Black Reproductive convenes Black literary and cultural studies with feminist and queer theory to explore how twentieth- and twenty-first-century texts and images relate to their pre-emancipation counterparts. It offers new perspectives on Black motherhood and gendered labor and highlights the possibilities for a Black feminist practice of individual and collective freedom.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 22 June 2021
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

In the United States, the institution of slavery relied heavily on the reproduction and other labor of unfree Black women. Nearly four centuries later, Black reproduction continues to play a crucial role in the creation, negotiation, and transformation of sexualized and gendered racial categories. While Black reproduction has been employed to address the conflicting demands of white supremacy, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy, Sara Clarke Kaplan contends that it also holds the potential to destabilize the oppressive systems it is intended to maintain.

The Black Reproductive brings together Black literary and cultural studies with feminist and queer theory to examine twentieth- and twenty-first-century texts and images alongside their pre-emancipation counterparts. These intriguing and unexpected pairings include how Toni Morrison's portrayal of infanticide regenders Orlando Patterson's theory of social death, and how Mary Prince's eighteenth-century fugitive slave narrative is reinterpreted through the representational paradoxes of Gayl Jones's blues novel Corregidora. Throughout, Kaplan offers fresh perspectives on Black motherhood and gendered labor, ranging from debates over the relationship between President Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings to the demise of racist icon Aunt Jemima to discussions of Black reproductive freedom and abortion.

The Black Reproductive provides valuable insights into the historical and ongoing conditions of Black unfreedom, and points to the possibilities for a Black feminist practice of individual and collective freedom.

Dimension: 216 x 140 x 38 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780816695690