Critical Appropriations: African American Women And The Construction Of Transnational Identity (southern Literary Studies) [Hardcover]

From the novels of Toni Morrison to the music of Beyonc? Knowles, the cultural prevalence of a transnational black identity, as created by African American women, is more than a product of geographic mobility. Rather, as author Simone C. Drake shows, these constructions illuminate our understanding of a chronically marginalized demographic. In Critical Appropriations, Drake contends that these fluid and hetero-geneous characterizations of black females arise from multiple creative outlets literature, film, and music videos and reflect African Ameri-can women's evolving concept of home, community, gender, and family.

Through a close examination of Toni Morrison's Paradise, Danzy Senna's Caucasia, Gayl Jones's Corregidora, Erna Brodber's Louisiana, and Kasi Lemmons's film Eve's Bayou, as well as Beyonc? Knowles's B-Day album and music-video collaboration with Shakira, Beautiful Liar, Drake reveals how concepts of hybridity whether positioned as cr?olit?, Candombl?, n?gritude, Latinidad, or Brasilidade are appropriated in each work of art as a way of challenging the homogeneous paradigm of black cultural studies. This redefined notion of identity enables African American women to embrace a more complex, transnational blackness that is not only more liberating but also more pertinent to their experiences.

Drawing from this borderless exchange of ideas and a richer concept of self, Critical Appropriations offers a rewarding reconsideration of the creative implications for African American women, mapping new directions in black women's studies.