Maparyan organizes the contributions around five key ideas. The first section looks at womanist self-care as a life-saving strategy. The second examines healing the Earth as a prerequisite to healing ourselves. In Part Three, the essays illuminate how womanism’s politics of invitation provides a strategy for enlarging humanity’s circle of inclusion, while Part Four considers womanism as both a challenge and antidote to dehumanization. The final section delves into womanism’s potential for constructing worlds and futures. In addition, Maparyan includes a section of works by womanist visual artists.

Defiant and far-sighted, Womanism Rising takes readers on a journey into a new generation of concepts, ideas, and strategies for womanist studies.

Foreword AnaLouise Keating

Acknowledgments

Introduction, Womanism Rising—Womanist Studies on Its Own Layli Maparyan

Part I. We Must Recover Ourselves Before We Heal the World: Womanist Self-Care

1. Who Cares About Black Women? Burnout, Self-Care, and Contemporary Black Women’s Activism Osizwe Raena Jamila Harwell
2. From Disequilibrium, Disease, and Dying to Happiness, Healing, and Health Empowerment Melinda A. Mills
3. Re-envisioning Health: Womanist Ways of Knowing Jameta Nicole Barlow
4. Black Girls Matter: Theorizing Black Girlhood Studies Through Womanism LaShawnda Lindsay

Part II. We Cannot Heal Ourselves Without Healing the Earth: Womanist Perspectives on Ecology, Spatiality, and Technology

1. New Modes of Healing: Connecting Earth Justice and Social Justice in Ecowomanism Melanie L. Harris
2. My Life in Your Hands: Womanist Reflections on Love, Space, and Pedagogy Epifania Akosua Amoo-Adare
3. Womanist Studies in China: From the 1980s to the Present Xiumei Pu

Part III. Enlarging the Kitchen Table: Womanist Politics of Invitation

1. (M)othering: Threshold Theorizing Sufi Womanist Praxis Sara Haq
2. “What’s That Young White Girl Doing Driving Around in Circles?”: A Womanist Reckoning with Toxic White Femininity Susannah Bartlow
3. A Reflection: Creating a World Where We Push Beyond Anti-Blackness, or, What Womanism Has Done for Me Tobias L. Spears
4. On Identity, Language, and Power: A Dialogue on Black Gay Men and Womanism Charles Stephens and Steven G. Fullwood

Part IV. A Threat to Sacredness Anywhere Is a Threat to Sacredness Everywhere: Womanist Challenges to Dehumanization

1. Black Skins, Orange Shorts: A Womanist Perspective Rachel Cook Northway
2. If We Bury the Ratchet, We Bury Black Women: A Womanist Analysis of Married to Medicine Heidi R. Lewis
3. Loving Myself as a “Black Male Outsider”: Breaking Silence about Becoming a Womanist Man” Gary L. Lemons
4. The Womanist Work of Healing Black Men and Boys Yolo Akili Robinson

Part V. Nurturing the Future We Wish to See: Womanism in Action, Past and Present

1. A Silent and Dignified Army: The Womanist Praxis of the Order of Eastern Star, PHA, 1870–1929 Derrick Lanois
2. Womanist Hip Hop Pedagogy and Collective Spaces for Black Girls Sherell A. McArthur
3. Institutionalizing Africana Empowerment: Resources and Reflections from a Womanist Journey Stephanie Y. Evans

Epilogue : Visions of LUXOCRACY

Linda Costa Photography: Artist Statement

    Banho de Luz (Portrait of Amina Love)

    Brandy (Frida)

    Lillian Blades (hold the ember)

    Kim (Warrior Mama)

Debra Elaine Johnson, MFA: Artist Statement

    The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene

    Vashti Said, No!

    Boost 

    Symbiotic Funk

    Untitled

Untitled Layli Maparyan

About the Authors and Artists

Credits

Index