Audre Lorde's Transnational Legacies

by Stella Bolaki (Editor), Sabine Broeck (Editor)

Overview

Among the most influential and insightful thinkers of her generation, Audre Lorde (1934–1992) inspired readers and activists through her poetry, autobiography, essays, and her political action. Most scholars have situated her work within the context of the women's, gay and lesbian, and black civil rights movements within the United States. However, Lorde forged coalitions with women in Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa, and twenty years after her passing, these alliances remain largely undocumented and unexplored.

Audre Lorde's Transnational Legacies is the first book to systematically document and thoroughly investigate Lorde's influence beyond the United States. Arranged in three thematically interrelated sections—Archives, Connections, and Work—the volume brings together scholarly essays, interviews, Lorde's unpublished speech about Europe, and personal reflections and testimonials from key figures throughout the world. Using a range of interdisciplinary approaches, contributors assess the reception, translation, and circulation of Lorde's writing and activism within different communities, audiences, and circles. They also shed new light on the work Lorde inspired across disciplinary borders.

In addition the volume editors, contributors include Sarah Cefai, Cassandra Ellerbe-Dueck, Paul M. Farber, Tiffany N. Florvil, Katharina Gerund, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Gloria Joseph, Jackie Kay, Marion Kraft, Christiana Lambrinidis, Zeedah Meierhofer-Mangeli, Rina Nissim, Chantal Oakes, Lester C. Olson, Pratibha Parmar, Peggy Piesche, Dagmar Schultz, Tamara Lea Spira, and Gloria Wekker.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781625341396
Publisher:	University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date:	07/23/2015
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Stella Bolaki is lecturer in American literature at the University of Kent and author of Unsettling the Bildungsroman: Reading Contemporary Ethnic American Women's Fiction. Sabine Broeck is professor of American studies at the University of Bremen in Germany and author of White Amnesia—Black Memory?: American Women's Writing and History.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Foreword Sara Ahmed ix

Introduction: Audre Lorde's Transnational Legacies Stella Bolaki Sabine Broeck 1

Part I Archives

1 The Dream of Europe-Remarks Audre Lorde 23

2 Audre Lords-The Berlin Years, 1984 to 1992: Transnational Experiences, the Making of a Film, and Its Reception Dagmar Schultz 27

3 Bonds of Sisterhood / Breaking of Silences: An Interview with Audre Lorde Marion Kraft 41

4 Naming Ourselves as Black Women in Europe: An African American-German and Afro-Dutch Conversation Cassandra Ellerbe-Dueck Gloria Wekker 55

5 Frontiers: An Interview with Audre Lorde Pratibha Parmar Jackie Kay 74

6 Audre Lorde and Her French-Speaking Readers Edna Nissim 85

7 Finding My Sisters: Audre Lorde and Black Women in Switzerland Zeedah Meierhofer-Mangeli 94

8 Audre Lorde's Relationship and Connections with South African Women Gloria J. Joseph 102

Part II Connections

9 Sisterhood as Performance in Audre Lorde's Public Advocacy Lester C. Olson 109

10 Transracial Feminist Alliances? Audre Lorde and West German Women Katharina Gerund 122

11 Emotional Connections: Audre Lorde and Black German Women Tiffany N. Florvil 135

12 "I Cross Her Borders at Midnight": Audre Lorde's Berlin Revisions Paul M. Father 148

13 "But We Are Not the Same": Generating a Critical Poetics of Diaspora Alexis Pauline Gumbs 163

14 The Geopolitics of the Erotic: Audre Lorde's Mexico and the Decolonization of the Revolutionary Imagination Tamara Lea Spira 177

Part III Work

15 The Critical Feelings of Audre Lorde, from the Standpoint of an Academic Minor Sarah Cefai 193

16 Audre Lorde and What Remains Chantal Oakes 207

17 The Cicadas of Courage: Let Us Perform Audre Lorde Christiana Lambrinidis 214

18 Inscribing the Past, Anticipating the Future: Audre Lorde and the Black Women's Movement in Germany Peggy Piesche 222

Afterword Stella Bolaki Sabine Brocck 226

Notes on Contributors 231

Index 237

What People are Saying About This

Maria I. Diedrich

This volume of essays makes a critically important contribution to Lorde scholarship on an interna-tional scale.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons

This volume beautifully and accurately documents Lorde's global imprint for our time. It is herstorical and simultaneously contemporary.

Editorial Reviews

"This volume beautifully and accurately documents Lorde's global imprint for our time. It is herstorical and simultaneously contemporary."—Aishah Shāhidah Simmons, associate editor of The Feminist Wire

"This volume of essays makes a critically important contribution to Lorde scholarship on an interna-tional scale."—Maria I. Diedrich, author of Cornelia James Cannon and the Future American Race

"This collection of 'transatlantic and transnational perspectives' brings unprecedented attention to the global outreach of African American writer Audre Lorde (1934-1992), a self-described 'black lesbian feminist warrior poet mother.' Required reading for all students of Lorde. Essential."—Choice

"The eighteen essays in Audre Lorde's Transnational Legacies attest to the tremendous influence Lorde had."—make/shift

"The anthology offers an eclectic combination of reminiscence, reflection, and engaged scholarship centered on a range of Lorde's international involvements, including the solidarity network Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa (SISA)."—Women's Review of Books

From the Publisher

The anthology offers an eclectic combination of reminiscence, reflection, and engaged scholarship centered on a range of Lorde's international involvements, including the solidarity network Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa (SISA).

Women's Review of Books

The eighteen essays in Audre Lorde's Transnational Legacies attest to the tremendous influence Lorde had.

make/shift

This collection of 'transatlantic and transnational perspectives' brings unprecedented attention to the global outreach of African American writer Audre Lorde (1934-1992), a self-described 'black lesbian feminist warrior poet mother.' Required reading for all students of Lorde. Essential.

Choice