Ajuan Mance – författare

“Ajuan Mance’s original and provocative study fills a gap in the scholarship on African American women poets.  The historical sweep of her analysis of these poets’ efforts at self-representation is as impressive as the depth of her analysis of individual poems.  Students and  scholars of African American poetry or of African American women writers will find Professor Mance’s study a rich, invaluable resource. Inventing Black Women incisively delineates the historical contexts that shaped the intricate and troubled relationships among gender, race, and poetry.”--Virginia C. Fowler, Virginia Tech UniversityInventing Black Women fills important gaps in our understanding of how African American women poets have resisted those conventional notions of gender and race that limit the visibility of Black female subjects. The first historical and thematic survey of African American women's poetry, this book examines the key developments that have shaped the growing body of poems by and about Black women over the nearly 125 years since the end of slavery and Reconstruction, as it offers incisive readings of individual works by important poets such as Alice B. Neal, Maggie Pogue Johnson, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, and many others.Ajuan Maria Mance establishes that the history of African American women's poetry revolves around the struggle of the Black female poet against two marginalizing forces: the widespread association of womanhood with the figure of the middle-class, white female; and the similar association of Blackness with the figure of the African American male. In so doing, she looks closely at the major trends in Black women's poetry during each of four critical moments in African American literary history: the post- Reconstruction era from 1877 to 1910; the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s; the Black Arts Movement from 1965 to 1975; and the late twentieth century from 1975 to 2000.Inventing Black Women  will prove an invaluable resource for scholars and students of American literature, African American studies, and women's studies.

When you’re the only Black kid in the honors program or (any program) at your mostly white high school, or one of a handful of Black graduate students in your PhD program, or one of two African American women on the faculty at your Pac-10 employer, it’s not your gender non-conformity that sets you apart from your peers. In those environments, your Blackness is the first thing people notice about you. Still, there are other ways of being different--and feeling different--that can’t be attributed to race, especially if you’re one of the people whose awareness of the unwritten rules of what it means to be a boy or a girl (or a man or a woman) is tempered by the fact that most of those rules don’t feel quite right.In Gender Studies: True Confessions of an Accidental Outlaw, Ajuan Mance gives comic treatment to the challenges, complexities, and occasional absurdity of life at the crossroads of race, gender, and geekiness. This graphic memoir answers important questions like: How many preschoolers have to mistake you for your dad before you actually start to forget your own name; if a Black girl is awful at double-dutch jump rope is it a reflection on her gender identity, racial identity, or both; and is viola player a gender or just a sexual orientation? Ajuan Mance’s comic Gender Confessions take up each of these questions and more, as it invites to share in those moments that mark the path of a gender explorer.

Inspired by Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?, these joyous portraits of real Black men provide both mirrors and windows. Have you ever wondered . . . What do brothas do all day? Brothas drive. Brothas dance. Brothas work. Brothas listen. And brothas love. This joyous reflection of Black men and boys engaged in everyday life celebrates the deep roots and rich cultures of African American communities. From grocery shopping and waiting for a trim at the barbershop to singing, dancing, and laughing with friends, author and illustrator Ajuan Mance captures the beauty in the ordinary, affirming the enduring strength of the Black community.