Speaking in Tongues & Dancing Diaspora: Black Women Writing and Performing by Mae G. Henderson (review)

Mae Henderson’s Speaking in Tongues & Dancing Diaspora: Black Women Writing and Performing is a collection of previously published essays written by the black feminist theorist over the years. Henderson’s oft-cited and most stirring essay, “Speaking in Tongues,” which in many respects revolutionized the uses of postmodern theory in analyses of African American women’s literature, appears here as well.

Readers looking for previously unpublished work, however, won’t find it here. Filled with Henderson’s riveting insights, Speaking in Tongues is more of a “greatest hits” compilation of a towering intellectual figure in the fields of feminist theory and African diaspora literature and cultural criticism.