In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary
Examines why African American women would choose conditions of bondage over individual freedom. Why would someone choose bondage over individual freedom? What kinds of freedom can be found in choosing conditions of enslavement? In Something Akin to Freedom, Winner of the 2008 SUNY Press Dissertation/First Book Prize in African American Studies, Stephanie Li explores literary texts where African American women decide to remain in or enter into conditions of bondage, sacrificing individual autonomy to achieve other goals. In fresh readings of stories by Harriet Jacobs, Hannah Crafts, Gayl Jones, Louisa Picquet and Toni Morrison, Li argues that amid shifting positions of power and through acts of creative agency, the women in these narratives make seemingly anti-intuitive choices that are simultaneously limiting and liberating. She explores how the appeal of the freedom of the North is constrained by the potential for isolation and destabilization for women rooted in the strong social networks in the South. By introducing reproduction, mother-child relationships and community into discourses concerning resistance, Li expands our understanding of individual liberation to include the courage to express personal desire and the freedom to love.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Copyright
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. p. vii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. p. ix
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction
  2. pp. 1-14
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 1 Intra-independence: Reconceptualizing Freedom and Resistance to Bondage
  2. pp. 15-40
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2 Choosing the Bondage of Domesticity and White Womanhood in The Bondwoman's Narrative
  2. pp. 41-64
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3 Voluntary Enslavement and Discursive Violence: Plaçage and Louisa Picquet
  2. pp. 65-86
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4 The Bondage of Memory in Gayl Jones's Corregidora
  2. pp. 87-116
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Coda From Bondage to War: The Lives of Contemporary Black Women in the Novels of Toni Morrison
  2. pp. 117-132
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. NOTES
  2. pp. 133-144
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. WORKS CITED
  2. pp. 145-158
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. INDEX
  2. pp. 159-162
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.