The Angela Y. Davis Reader

by James, Joy

• ISBN13: 9780631203612
• ISBN10: 0631203613
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-12-04
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

For three decades, Angela Y. Davis has written on liberation theory and democratic praxis. Challenging the foundations of mainstream discourse, her analyses of culture, gender, capital, and race have profoundly influenced democratic theory, antiracist feminism, critical studies and political struggles.Even for readers who primarily know her as a revolutionary of the late 1960s and early 1970s (or as a political icon for militant activism) she has greatly expanded the scope and range of social philosophy and political theory. Expanding critical theory, contemporary progressive theorists - engaged in justice struggles - will find their thought influenced by the liberation praxis of Angela Y. Davis.The Angela Y. Davis Reader presents eighteen essays from her writings and interviews which have appeared in If They Come in the Morning, Women, Race, and Class, Women, Culture, and Politics, and Black Women and the Blues as well as articles published in women's, ethnic/black studies and communist journals, and cultural studies anthologies. In four parts - "Prisons, Repression, and Resistance", "Marxism, Anti-Racism, and Feminism", "Aesthetics and Culture", and recent interviews - Davis examines revolutionary politics and intellectualism.Davis's discourse chronicles progressive political movements and social philosophy. It is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary political philosophy, critical race theory, social theory, ethnic studies, American studies, African American studies, cultural theory, feminist philosophy, gender studies.

Author Biography

Joy James teaches Political Theory in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is the author of several noted books and publications on Feminism, Critical Race Theory, and Democratic Politics, including Transcending the Talented Tenth: Black Leaders and American Intellectuals (1997).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(28)
Part I Prisons, Repression, and Resistance
Excerpts from Angela Davis: An Autobiography	29	(10)
Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation	39	(14)
Unfinished Lecture on Liberation-II	53	(8)
Race and Criminalization: Black Americans and the Punishment Industry	61	(13)
From the Prison of Slavery to the Slavery of Prison: Frederick Douglass and the Convict Lease System	74	(22)
Racialized Punishment and Prison Abolition	96	(15)
Part II Marxism, Anti-Racism, and Feminism
Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves	111	(18)
Rape, Racism, and the Capitalist Setting	129	(9)
Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Challenge to Racism	138	(11)
JoAnne Little: The Dialectics of Rape	149	(12)
Women and Capitalism: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation	161	(32)
The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective	193	(17)
Surrogates and Outcast Mothers: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties	210	(12)
Black Women and the Academy	222	(13)
Part III Aesthetics and Culture
Art on the Frontline: Mandate for a People's Culture	235	(13)
I Used To Be Your Sweet Mama: Ideology, Sexuality, and Domesticity	248	(17)
Underexposed: Photography and Afro-American History	265	(8)
Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia	273	(6)
Meditations on the Legacy of Malcolm X	279	(10)
Black Nationalism: The Sixties and the Nineties	289	(8)
Part IV Interviews
Coalition Building Among People of Color: A Discussion with Angela Y. Davis and Elizabeth Martinez	297	(10)
Reflections on Race, Class, and Gender in the USA	307	(40)
Part V Appendix
Opening Defense Statement Presented by Angela Y. Davis in Santa Clara County Superior Court, March 29, 1972	329	(18)
Selected Bibliography	347	(2)
Index	349