Difficult Diasporas: The Transnational Feminist Aesthetic of the Black Atlantic

Index

aesthetics: of accumulation, 175–200; aesthetic of time, 91; alternative, 51; of diaspora, 88, 176; diaspora enacted as aesthetics of identity, 9–10; Fanon on politically representative, 199; feminist, 5, 16–17, 42, 105, 181; identity as matter of ethics and, 216n32; innovative, 4, 8, 16, 205; literary and cultural production in construction of race, gender, and location, 4–5; mapping Black Atlantic feminist, 10–17; and politics, 3, 210n4; realist, 149; Walcott on New World, 81; of Wicomb, 163. See also black aesthetic Africa: in Aidoo’s The Dilemma of a Ghost, 82, 95, 96–97, 100, 101–3; in Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro, 86, 90; postcolonial, 83, 94, 98, 100, 102 Aidoo, Ama Ata: Anowa, 93, 104, 223n2, 224n14, 225n20; occupies and renegotiates order of diaspora, 3; Our Sister Killjoy, 224n16, 225n21; “To Be an African Woman Writer,” 201. See also Dilemma of a Ghost, The (Aidoo) Alexander, Elizabeth: American Sublime, 222n19; Antebellum Dreambook, 62; Diva Studies, 53; on gaps between transmission of history and memory, 49; genealogies of performance in, 50; occupies and renegotiates order of diaspora, 3; poetics of, 45–46, 47, 52, 74–75; strategy of, 48; ultimate strategy of, 76. See also Venus Hottentot, The (Alexander) Baartman, Saartjie (Venus Hottentot): in Alexander’s The Venus Hottentot, 49, 50, 52, 55–63; bottom of, 45, 46, 49, 54, 55, 57, 61, 69; in Mullen’s Muse & Drudge, 181–83; narrative restraint in addressing body of, 47; recent work on, 55, 221n7; remains of, 59, 221n14 Baker, Houston, 2, 115, 118, 119, 137, 211n9, 212n16, 226n12 Baraka, Amiri, 111, 209n2, 215n26 Bessie Smith (Kay), 18–43; “A jar of Harlem night air,” 18, 21, 29, 38–39, 41, 42; as amalgam of blues and nineteensixties Scotland, 12–13, 19; in Harlem, 20–24, 31–32; projects itself into act of collection, 35–36; queer desire in, 19, 24; queer time in, 37–43; reorders genealogy of black culture and black reception, 28–29; repositions popular performance in genealogy of diaspora, 19–20; structure of, 25–26 black aesthetic: Alexander’s work and, 53; Black Arts on, 215n26; black women’s writing and conservative readings of, 4; the blues as paradigmatic for, 2; and dominant culture, 210n7; Ellis’s “New Black Aesthetic,” 209n1; Hurston and, 107; Kay’s Bessie Smith and, 19, 20 Index 266 / index Louisiana, 123; as complicated Foucauldian order of things, 1–2; figures as icons or heroes, 26–27; lesbian, 40; movement foregrounded in, 216n33; Mullen associated with, 230n2; timing in, 37, 42; travel in, 24, 39, 41 bottoms (buttocks), 44–76; in Alexander’s The Venus Hottentot, 49–63; of Baartman, 45, 49, 54, 55, 57, 61, 69; in the blues, 220n2; of Dandridge, 45, 67, 70, 71, 73; in Ford-Smith’s “A Message from Ni,” 44, 62, 69, 75; as near reference to sex itself, 50–51; in Richards’s “Beauty Projection,” 63, 64, 65; in Richards’s “C’est l’amour,” 67–73; of the sea, 222n27; as sign of cultural and racial significance, 46, 220n3 Brodber, Erna: on Garvey, 125–26; maintains fixed subject positions and cultural methods, 140; Myal, 129; occupies and renegotiates order of diaspora, 3; The Rainmaker’s Mistake, 227n27, 228n35; on realism, 142. See also Louisiana (Brodber) Carby, Hazel, 6, 8, 111, 201, 202, 218n4 Collector of Treasures, The (Head), 150–57; “The Collector of Treasures,” 156–57; complex relationship between plot and sequence in, 12; “cool stance” in, 151, 152, 157, 158, 164, 168; “The Deep River: A Story of Ancient Tribal Migration,” 154; on desire for connection, 147; “Life,” 155–56; “Looking for a Rain God,” 156; narrative dissonance between sequencing and representations of gender in, 15; on revisions of romance plots, 148; “Snapshots of a Wedding,” 145, 150–53, 157, 163, 170; “The Wind and the Boy,” 150, 154–55 corporeality: in Aidoo’s The Dilemma of a Ghost, 80, 93–103; black women’s bodies’ as hypersexualized, 181; black women’s bodies as modes of diaspora intellectual practice, 58; crisis of black women’s bodies, 76; gendered, 78, 79, 82, 103, 108, 196, 226; genealogy of black women’s bodies, 13; history and bodies, 104; in Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro, 80, 83–93; reconsidering Black Arts movement, 54, 84, 215n26, 217n2 black feminism: in Brodber’s Louisiana, 124, 127, 131, 134, 135; in critique of Hurston and Brodber, 107; in extension of African American canon, 6; Garvey as hero of, 127; on Harlem Renaissance, 217n1; in...