The Lifeforce of Women: The Uses of the Erotic in Black Women's Literature & Art

Abstract

In this project I am intrigued by the connection of freedom and survival for black women in those linkages and how this kinship is reliant on the reclamation of power, pleasure, and creativity as articulated through Lorde's 1979 theory on erotic liberation. I use Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Zora Neale Hurston's written works to seek alternative liberatory practices for their characters and ourselves.