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A uniquely structured collection of essays from one of today’s most esteemed scholars of black studies

A thoughtfully curated selection of texts by preeminent black feminist scholar Katherine McKittrick, Heartbreak and Other Geographies showcases the remarkable depth of inquiry she has generated over twenty years. Edited by Brittany Meché and Camilla Hawthorne, this collection highlights McKittrick’s enduring commitment to ideas around radical placemaking and the creative articulations of and within the black diaspora.

McKittrick’s work is marked by a recurring engagement with anticolonialism, practices of liberation, and radical methodologies of black cultural production. Through discussions of figures such as Toni Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Édouard Glissant, Paul Gilroy, Nina Simone, and Sylvia Wynter, the writing in Heartbreak and Other Geographies spans the author’s investigations into scientific method, liberal modernity, the cycles that perpetuate racial violence, and the poetics and sonics of black livingness.

Bringing together recent texts, influential pieces, and lesser-known essays, the unconventional format of Heartbreak and Other Geographies includes an introductory conversation with McKittrick as well as a series of creative interludes from the editors throughout the book. Innovative in both form and content, this wide-ranging volume invites us to rethink the boundaries between disciplines and the ways that scholarship can embody a more collaborative form of worldmaking.

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A vibrant tribute to Lewis Nordan’s unforgettable blend of Southern surrealism, dark humor, and deep humanity.

Lewis Nordan: Humor, Heartbreak, and Hope is a rich collection of essays that examines the life and work of one of the South’s most distinctive literary voices. Edited by Barbara A. Baker, this volume brings together scholars and writers who explore Nordan’s use of magical realism, dark humor, and emotional vulnerability to portray the complexities of life in the Mississippi Delta. Through themes of race, poverty, family, and resilience, the contributors illuminate how Nordan’s fiction captures both the pain and beauty of the Southern experience. This book is essential reading for fans of Southern literature, cultural studies, and American fiction.

Written by scholars and fiction writers who represent a fascinating range of experience—from a Shakespearean scholar to English professors to a former student of Nordan’s—this is a rich array of essays, poems, and visual arts in tribute to this increasingly important writer. The collection deepens the base of scholarship on Nordan, and contextualizes his work in relation to other important southern writers such as William Faulkner and Eudora Welty.

Nordan was born and raised in Mississippi before moving to Alabama to pursue his Ph.D. at Auburn University. He taught for several years at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and retired from the University of Pittsburgh, where he was a professor of English. Nordan has written four novels, three collections of short stories, and a memoir entitled Boy with Loaded Gun. His second novel, Wolf Whistle, won the Southern Book Award, and his subsequent novel, The Sharpshooter Blues, won the Notable Book Award from the American Library Association and the Fiction Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. Nordan is renowned for his distinctive comic writing style, even while addressing more serious personal and cultural issues such as heartbreak, loss, violence, and racism. He transforms tragic characters and events into moments of artistic transcendence, illuminating what he calls the “history of all human beings.”