Western culture has long regarded black female sexuality with a strange mix of fascination and condemnation, associating it with everything from desirability, hypersexuality, and liberation to vulgarity, recklessness, and disease. Yet even as their bodies and sexualities have been the subject of countless public discourses, black women's voices have been largely marginalized in these discussions. In this groundbreaking collection, feminist scholars from across the academy come together to correct this omission--illuminating black female sexual desires marked by agency and empowerment, as well as pleasure and pain, to reveal the ways black women regulate their sexual lives.
The twelve original essays in "Black Female Sexualities" reveal the diverse ways black women perceive, experience, and represent sexuality. The contributors highlight the range of tactics that black women use to express their sexual desires and identities. Yet they do not shy away from exploring the complex ways in which black women negotiate the more traumatic aspects of sexuality and grapple with the legacy of negative stereotypes.
"Black Female Sexualities" takes not only an interdisciplinary approach--drawing from critical race theory, sociology, and performance studies--but also an intergenerational one, in conversation with the foremothers of black feminist studies. In addition, it explores a diverse archive of representations, covering everything from blues to hip-hop, from "Crash "to "Precious," from Sister Souljah to Edwidge Danticat. Revealing that black female sexuality is anything but a black-and-white issue, this collection demonstrates how to appreciate a whole spectrum of subjectivities, experiences, and desires.

This is the most complete introduction to Unitarian Universalism available, covering ministry, worship, religious education, social justice and history. Extensively revised, the sixth edition prepares readers with resources and information for this crucial moment in Unitarian Universalism. It, also, gives voice to many individual Unitarian Universalists - people of all ages, coming from many backgrounds and holding many beliefs - as they share their personal and deeply heartfelt testimonies. Contributors include Rosemary Bray McNatt, Erika Hewitt, Cheryl Walker, Jessica York, Elizabeth Nguyen, Aisha Hauser and Dan McKanan. The foreword was written by lifelong Unitarian Universalist Melissa Harris-Perry - writer, professor, political commentator and editor-at-large at Elle.com.

A personal, intimate account of the extraordinary ways that today's families are being created. From adoption and assisted reproduction, to gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families, the stories in Modern Families explain how individuals make unconventional families by accessing a broad range of technological, medical and legal choices that expand our definitions of parenting and kinship. Joshua Gamson introduces us to a child with two mothers, made with one mother's egg and the sperm of a man none of them has ever met; another born in Ethiopia, delivered by his natural grandmother to an orphanage after both his parents died in close succession, and then to the arms of his mother, who is raising him solo. These tales are deeply personal and political. The process of forming these families involved jumping tremendous hurdles-social conventions, legal and medical institutions-with heightened intention and inventiveness, within and across multiple inequities and privileges. Yet each of these families, however they came to be, shares the same universal joys that all families share. A companion for all those who choose to navigate the world of modern kinship, Modern Families provides a "fascinating look at the remarkable range of experiences that is broadening the very idea of family" (Booklist).

A personal, intimate account of the extraordinary ways that today's families are being created. From adoption and assisted reproduction, to gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families, the stories in Modern Families explain how individuals make unconventional families by accessing a broad range of technological, medical and legal choices that expand our definitions of parenting and kinship. Joshua Gamson introduces us to a child with two mothers, made with one mother's egg and the sperm of a man none of them has ever met; another born in Ethiopia, delivered by his natural grandmother to an orphanage after both his parents died in close succession, and then to the arms of his mother, who is raising him solo. These tales are deeply personal and political. The process of forming these families involved jumping tremendous hurdles-social conventions, legal and medical institutions-with heightened intention and inventiveness, within and across multiple inequities and privileges. Yet each of these families, however they came to be, shares the same universal joys that all families share. A companion for all those who choose to navigate the world of modern kinship, Modern Families provides a "fascinating look at the remarkable range of experiences that is broadening the very idea of family" (Booklist).

Combining a fascinating history of the first U.S. high school for African Americans with an unflinching analysis of urban public-school education today, First Class explores an underrepresented and largely unknown aspect of black history while opening a discussion on what it takes to make a public school successful. In 1870, in the wake of the Civil War, citizens of Washington, DC, opened the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, the first black public high school in the United States; it would later be renamed Dunbar High and would flourish despite Jim Crow laws and segregation. Dunbar attracted an extraordinary faculty: its early principal was the first black graduate of Harvard, and at a time it had seven teachers with PhDs, a medical doctor, and a lawyer. During the school's first 80 years, these teachers would develop generations of highly educated, successful African Americans, and at its height in the 1940s and '50s, Dunbar High School sent 80 percent of its students to college. Today, as in too many failing urban public schools, the majority of Dunbar students are barely proficient in reading and math. Journalist and author Alison Stewart-whose parents were both Dunbar graduates-tells the story of the school's rise, fall, and possible resurgence as it reopens a new, state-of-the-art campus.

Western culture has long regarded black female sexuality with a strange mix of fascination and condemnation, associating it with everything from desirability, hypersexuality, and liberation to vulgarity, recklessness, and disease. Yet even as their bodies and sexualities have been the subject of countless public discourses, black women's voices have been largely marginalized in these discussions. In this groundbreaking collection, feminist scholars from across the academy come together to correct this omission--illuminating black female sexual desires marked by agency and empowerment, as well as pleasure and pain, to reveal the ways black women regulate their sexual lives.
The twelve original essays in "Black Female Sexualities" reveal the diverse ways black women perceive, experience, and represent sexuality. The contributors highlight the range of tactics that black women use to express their sexual desires and identities. Yet they do not shy away from exploring the complex ways in which black women negotiate the more traumatic aspects of sexuality and grapple with the legacy of negative stereotypes.
"Black Female Sexualities" takes not only an interdisciplinary approach--drawing from critical race theory, sociology, and performance studies--but also an intergenerational one, in conversation with the foremothers of black feminist studies. In addition, it explores a diverse archive of representations, covering everything from blues to hip-hop, from "Crash "to "Precious," from Sister Souljah to Edwidge Danticat. Revealing that black female sexuality is anything but a black-and-white issue, this collection demonstrates how to appreciate a whole spectrum of subjectivities, experiences, and desires.