Black Girlhood Celebration

The Author: Ruth Nicole Brown is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

«Ruth Nicole Brown provides a dazzlingly insightful look into the spatial practices cultivated by black girls who speak through hip-hop. The significance of Brown’s study is in its attention to Africana womanism (and the complex range of black feminist theory and third world feminisms), a ‘genderationally’ contingent philosophical framework that helps us to understand the political import of black girlhood practices.» (LaShonda Katrice Barnett, Sarah Lawrence College)«Ruth Nicole Brown’s writing is poetry in motion. ‘Girl empowerer’ and impresario of ethnographic education, she entertains readers, masterfully capturing the embodied knowledge, intellectual observations, and urban artistry of black girlhood. This work inspires, uplifts, and ultimately counters the usual mis-education of and about black girls in after-school programs and rap sessions about teenage pregnancy or sexual abuse (...). Social scientists, social workers, and cultural critics alike will love this. Brown takes the game of what’s possible for academic studies to the next level.» (Kyra D. Gaunt, Ethnomusicologist and Associate Professor of Music and Anthropology, Baruch College, City University of New York)