Explores the theme of aesthetic agency and its potential for social and political progress.

Explores the interplay between artistic values and social, political, and moral concerns in writings by African American and Native American women.Bringing together criticism on both African American and Native American women writers, this book offers fresh perspectives on art and beauty, truth, justice, community, and the making of a good and happy life. The essays draw on interdisciplinary, feminist, and comparative methods in the works of writers such as Toni Morrison, Leslie Silko, Alice Walker, Linda Hogan, Paula Gunn Allen, Luci Tapahonso, Phillis Wheatley, and Sherley Anne Williams, making them more accessible for critical consideration in the fields of aesthetics, philosophy, and critical theory. The contributors formulate unique frameworks for interpreting the multiple levels of complex, cultural play between Native American and African American women writers in America, and pave the way for innovative hermeneutic possibilities for reassessing writers of both traditions.Contributors include Christa Davis Acampora, Michael A. Antonucci, Ellen L. Arnold, Angela L. Cotten, Barbara Helen-Hill, AnaLouise Keating, Noelle Morrissette, Margot Reynolds, Maggie Romigh, Barbara S. Tracy, and Elizabeth J. West.Angela L. Cotten is Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at Stony Brook University, State University of New York. Christa Davis Acampora is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York. She is coeditor (with Ralph R. Acampora) of A Nietzschean Bestiary: Becoming Animal Beyond Docile and Brutal.