{"title":"Kemeshia Randle Swanson","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"maverick-feminist-book-kemeshia-randle-swanson-9781496850652","title":"Maverick Feminist","description":"Beginning with their forced introduction to American soil, Black women have relied on maverick-like characteristics to survive. And yet, these liberating characteristics have been repeatedly disparaged by the masses in favor of an elitist politics of respectability. In Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability, scholar Kemeshia Randle Swanson examines the extent to which the politics of respectability diminish joy and increase sorrow throughout the lifespan of Black women. By rejecting this damaging standard in society, Black women can wholly and attentively assist in the obliteration of racist, sexist, classist, and ableist oppression. But first, they must work towards becoming self-identified, self-actualized, and self-sexualized.  Bridging the gap between women in both the streets and the academy, Maverick Feminist expands the traditional understandings of activism and enlarges discussions about Black female sexuality. Swanson emphasizes sexuality’s significance to the literary and sociopolitical success of Black women of the past and in this contemporary climate. Through close readings and critical analyses of fiction, nonfiction, and popular culture, Swanson argues that #blackgirlmagic and racial progression require rejecting respectability politics and developing an intimate appreciation of self. Maverick Feminist examines texts by and about bold Black women, including Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Sister Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever, Brittney Cooper’s Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Sapphire’s PUSH, Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, Terry McMillan’s Getting to Happy, and Michelle Obama’s Becoming.  Maverick Feminist offers hope concerning the growing divide between scholars and the communities about which they theorize. The book celebrates centuries of agency and control that Black women have mustered and maintained in a world that seems to want nothing more than to see them prone and powerless. Ultimately, maverick feminism provides a freer means of living out, evaluating, understanding, and improving the lives of Black women.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49748200849681,"sku":"NGR9781496850652","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52584514683153,"sku":"NLS9781496850652","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1496850653.jpg?v=1763479471"},{"product_id":"conversations-with-jesmyn-ward-book-kemeshia-randle-swanson-9781496856678","title":"Conversations with Jesmyn Ward","description":"Jesmyn Ward (b. 1977) is arguably one of today’s most important authors. Although often compared to William Faulkner, Ward and her writings have done anything but live in that shadow since the 2008 debut of her first novel Where the Line Bleeds. She has produced four novels and a memoir that are equally harrowing and heartening, and she is the recipient of numerous major literary awards and fellowships, including two National Book Awards, for Salvage the Bones (2011) and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017).  Spanning from 2009 to the present, the interviews collected in Conversations with Jesmyn Ward display a master artist with a poetic command for words. Ward’s personality and writing style could be characterized as gentle, passionate, fastidious, queer, and brutally honest, as her soft-spoken voice and lyrical prose express a passion for the world so large and consuming that it often emanates as rage or sadness but always leaves readers with a bit of hope. She speaks at length about grief, her writing process, and a love-hate relationship with her home state of Mississippi and the South, as well as the influence that her family, hip-hop music and culture, and vigorous childhood reading have on her writing.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51628510445841,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51628510642449,"sku":"NGR9781496856678","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52502636527889,"sku":"NLS9781496856678","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1496856678.jpg?v=1758794233"},{"product_id":"conversations-with-jesmyn-ward-book-kemeshia-randle-swanson-9781496856685","title":"Conversations with Jesmyn Ward","description":"Conversations with Jesmyn Ward display a master artist with a poetic command for words.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51632104472849,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51632104800529,"sku":"NGR9781496856685","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51830004580625,"sku":"NIN9781496856685","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52502626566417,"sku":"NLS9781496856685","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1496856686.jpg?v=1758794028"},{"product_id":"maverick-feminist-book-kemeshia-randle-swanson-9781496850645","title":"Maverick Feminist","description":"Beginning with their forced introduction to American soil, Black women have relied on maverick-like characteristics to survive. And yet, these liberating characteristics have been repeatedly disparaged by the masses in favor of an elitist politics of respectability. In Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability, scholar Kemeshia Randle Swanson examines the extent to which the politics of respectability diminish joy and increase sorrow throughout the lifespan of Black women. By rejecting this damaging standard in society, Black women can wholly and attentively assist in the obliteration of racist, sexist, classist, and ableist oppression. But first, they must work towards becoming self-identified, self-actualized, and self-sexualized.  Bridging the gap between women in both the streets and the academy, Maverick Feminist expands the traditional understandings of activism and enlarges discussions about Black female sexuality. Swanson emphasizes sexuality’s significance to the literary and sociopolitical success of Black women of the past and in this contemporary climate. Through close readings and critical analyses of fiction, nonfiction, and popular culture, Swanson argues that #blackgirlmagic and racial progression require rejecting respectability politics and developing an intimate appreciation of self. Maverick Feminist examines texts by and about bold Black women, including Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Sister Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever, Brittney Cooper’s Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Sapphire’s PUSH, Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, Terry McMillan’s Getting to Happy, and Michelle Obama’s Becoming.  Maverick Feminist offers hope concerning the growing divide between scholars and the communities about which they theorize. The book celebrates centuries of agency and control that Black women have mustered and maintained in a world that seems to want nothing more than to see them prone and powerless. Ultimately, maverick feminism provides a freer means of living out, evaluating, understanding, and improving the lives of Black women.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52589006160145,"sku":"NLS9781496850645","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781496850645.jpg?v=1763476272"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-kemeshia-randle-swanson.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}