Unmaking Race, Remaking Soul: Transformative Aesthetics and the Practice of Freedom

Unmaking Race, Remaking Soul explores innovative approaches to analyzing cultural productions through which women of color have challenged and undermined social and political forces that work to oppress them. Emphasizing art-making practices that emerge out of and reflect concrete lived experience, leading contributors to the fields of contemporary psychoanalytic literary analysis, Latin American studies, feminist theory, Native Women’s studies, Africana studies, philosophy, and art history examine the relationship between the aesthetic and the political.

The focus of the book is on the idea of aesthetic agency through which one develops different modes of expression and creative practices that facilitate personal and social transformation. Aesthetic agency is liberating in a broad sense–it not only frees our creative capacities but also expands our capacity for joy and our abilities to know, to judge, and to act. Artists considered include Nadema Agard,Julia Alvarez, Ana Castillo, Daystar/Rosalie Jones, Coco Fusco, Diane Glancy, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Toni Morrison, MeShell Ndeg‚ocello, Marcie Rendon, Ntozake Shange, Lorna Simpson, Roxanne Swentzell, Regina Vater, Kay Walking Stick, and Carrie Mae Weems.

“This collection makes an intriguing and important contribution to understanding the experiences and cultural productions of women of color.” — Bilinda Straight, editor of Women on the Verge of Home

Contributors include Christa Davis Acampora, Ritch Calvin, Angela L. Cotten, Jaye T. Darby, Phoebe Farris, Nandita Gupta, Joy James, Kimberly Lamm, Eduardo Mendieta, Martha Mockus, Kelly Oliver, Ruth Porritt, Ailsa L. Smith, and Katherine Wilson. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.