Monstrous Intimacies

Through compelling and intricate readings of visual and written texts, Sharpe is concerned with unpacking the intersection between violence, sex, and subjectivity in post-slavery subjects. Sharpes work is a poignant reflection on historical time and convincingly deals with the ways that the horrors of the past continue to structure the present. . . . Sharpes book is an eloquent and at times challenging analysis of the construction of post-slavery subjects as subjects who are by no means post but continue to be structured by the past that is not quite past. - Sam McBean, Elevate Difference This is a bold, challenging book which is unrelenting in its interpretation of slavery and the effects it has had on subsequent generations, black and white. In effect, the monstrous intimacies continue. - Danielle Mulholland, M/C Reviews Sharpes Monstrous Intimacies succeeds in illuminating the complex entanglements of desire and horror at the heart of Black and White subjectification after slavery. More profoundly, this text powerfully balances the fact of historys monstrous persistence and the desire for what she identifies, after Dionne Brand, as a modality of Black life unhinged to historical narrative (129). - Sarah Cervenak, Womens Studies The materials in Monstrous Intimacies register as being profoundly relevant not only for African American literature, but also for studies of the history of slavery in relation to the U.S. South. Moreover, her second chapter, focusing on the literature and culture of South Africa, addresses histories of racism, colonialism, and imperialism and speaks to discourses on the global South. - Rich Richardson, Southern Literary Journal "OverallSharpe successfully demonstrates the presence of "monstrous intimacies" in each chapter. Most importantly, she creates a methodology for understanding the psychological development of post-slavery subjects and the seductive story-telling that represents his or her experience." - Denia Fraser, Kritikon Litterarum Monstrous Intimacies is a remarkable study, lucid, engaging, and thoroughly engrossing.Sharon Patricia Holland, author of Raising the Dead: Readings of Death and (Black) Subjectivity Monstrous Intimacies is an original, enriching look at the variety of artistic forms and practices that interrogate the illness of the post-slavery subject. It is international in its scope, interdisciplinary in its approach, and consistently intelligent in its execution.Ashraf Rushdy, author of Remembering Generations: Race and Family in Contemporary African American Fiction Sharpes Monstrous Intimacies succeeds in illuminating the complex entanglements of desire and horror at the heart of Black and White subjectification after slavery. More profoundly, this text powerfully balances the fact of historys monstrous persistence and the desire for what she identifies, after Dionne Brand, as a modality of Black life unhinged to historical narrative (129). -- Sarah Cervenak * Women's Studies * This is a bold, challenging book which is unrelenting in its interpretation of slavery and the effects it has had on subsequent generations, black and white. In effect, the monstrous intimacies continue. -- Danielle Mulholland * M/C Reviews * Through compelling and intricate readings of visual and written texts, Sharpe is concerned with unpacking the intersection between violence, sex, and subjectivity in post-slavery subjects. Sharpes work is a poignant reflection on historical time and convincingly deals with the ways that the horrors of the past continue to structure the present. . . . Sharpes book is an eloquent and at times challenging analysis of the construction of post-slavery subjects as subjects who are by no means post but continue to be structured by the past that is not quite past. -- Sam McBean * Elevate Difference *

Christina Sharpe is Associate Professor of English and Director of American Studies at Tufts University.

Acknowledgments ix Introduction. Making Monstrous Intimacies: Surviving Slavery, Bearing Freedom 1 1. Gayl Jones's Corregidora and Reading the "Days That Were Pages of Hysteria" 27 2. Bessie Head, Saartje Baartman, and Maru Redemption, Subjectification, and the Problem of Liberation 67 3. Isaac Julien's The Attendant and the Sadomasochism of Everyday Black Life 111 4. Kara Walker's Monstrous Intimacies 153 Notes 189 Bibliography 223 Index 243