2020 •
Alvin J. Henry
A groundbreaking examination of how twentieth-century African American writers use queer characters to challenge and ultimately reject subjectivity
Black Queer Flesh reinterprets key African American novels from the Harlem Renaissance to Black Modernism to contemporary literature, showing how authors have imagined a new model of Black queer selfhood. This book is an original and necessary contribution to Black literary studies, offering new ways to understand and appreciate the canonical texts and far more.
Alvin J. Henry’s
Black Queer Flesh makes not only a significant and needed contribution to Black literary studies, but indeed will transform twentieth-century African American criticism and theory. His critical articulation of ‘Black queer flesh’ shaped by theories of Black self-abnegation offers a critical approach that makes it possible to rethink the Black queer self in key literary texts.