09/26/21 Lemonade Syllabus | University of Roehampton
Lemonade Syllabus View Online (Academic year 2021-2022)
159 items
Introduction to the Lemonade Syllabus (1 items)
Beyoncé's visual album, Lemonade, is packed with references to black feminist and womanist themes and contains themes that span disciplines such as English Literature, Critical Theory, Historical and Cultural Studies, Theology, Music, Theatre, Dance and Film. Lemonade - described as "a conceptual project based on every woman's journey of self-knowledge and healing" - touches on so many issues of sexual and racial politics that it provides an ideal, accessible gateway into a whole world of literature.
The Lemonande Syllabus was created by Candice Benbow, a Rutgers University educator, and features contributions from academics and activists from different subject backgrounds. It contains suggested readings - including books, films, music and poetry - to help you unpack, discover and engage with the multiple themes explored throughout the new album.
The Library has compiled this reading list, based on the Lemonade Syllabus with a few other suggestions of our own, to help you access these readings and other interesting works on similar topics. Many of these resources are available online, and those that are not can be borrowed from the University Library.
Click on the Table of Contents button above to see the themes at a glance and navigate to relevant sections of the list. To see full details and library holdings click on the title of the item, or on the online resource button to link to electronic resources. For some items you will need to enter your Roehampton login to access full text. Always choose the Shibboleth or Institutional log in option.
Download your free copy of the Lemonande Syllabus here
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Dance (18 items)
Beyoncé, Girl Power, Real Politics: Dis/Respectability, Post-Raciality and the Politics of Inclusion, (Chapter 15 in The Oxford handbook of dance and the popular screen) - Takiyah Nur-Amin, 2014 Article
Kaiso! - Veve A. Clark, Sara E. Johnson, 2006 Book
Black Dancing Body - Brenda Dixon Gottschild, 2003 Book
Swing Time - Zadie Smith, 2017 Book
Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large - Carolyn Cooper, 2004 Book
She is Cuba - Melissa Blanco Borelli, 2016 Book
Afrofuturist Remains: A Speculative Rendering of Social Dance Futures, v. 2.0 - Thomas DeFrantz Chapter
Dancing Many Drums - Thomas F Defrantz, 2002 Book
Black Performance Theory - Thomas Defrantz, Anita Gonzalez, 2014 Book
To exist is to resist: black feminism in Europe - 2019 Book
Brazilian bodies and their choreographies of identification: swing nation - Cristina F. Rosa, 2015 Book
Scenes of Subjection - Saidiya V. (Assistant Professor Hartman, 1997 Book
Xenofeminism - Helen Hester, 2018 Book
Theory and Methods for an Anthropological Study of Dance - Joann W Kealiinohomoku, 2008 Book
"The White to Be Angry": Vaginal Davis's Terrorist Drag - Jose Esteban Munoz, 1997-23
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Article
'African-American Dance Revisited: Undoing Master Narratives in the Studying and Teaching Dance History - Takiyah Nur-Amin Chapter
The hiplife in Ghana: West African indigenization of hip-hop - Halifu Osumare, 2013 Book
Twerking and Cultural Appropriation: Miley Cyrus' Display of Racial Ignorance - Shereen Zink Article
Music (2 items)
LEMONADE - Beyoncé Audio document | Lemonade is available for streaming on Tidal, and can be purchased on iTunes
Lemonade Syllabus Playlist - Spotify Audio document | Listen to our Spotify playlist of music that may inform, influence and compliment your listening of Lemonade. 60 tracks, and over 4 hours of songs by black female artists, featuring the music of FKA Twigs, Laura Mvula, Angel Haze, Erykah Baydu, Nina Simone, and many others, including Queen Bey herself.
Fiction & Literature (19 items)
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2014 Book | Telling the story of a young Nigerian woman who emigrates to the United States, this novel is an exploration of oppression and the idea of home. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was sampled on Beyoncé's 2014 song "***Flawless".
Purple hibiscus: a novel - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2005 Book | When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili's father, involved in mysterious ways with the unfolding political crisis, sends Kambili and her brother away to their aunt's. Here she discovers love and a life - dangerous and heathen - beyond the confines of her father's authority. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was sampled on Beyoncé's 2014 song "***Flawless".
Salt Eaters - Toni Cade Bambara, 1987 Book | Bambara's first novel centres on two women, a spiritual healer and a community activist. It is political in tone, with several of the characters being veterans of the civil rights, feminist, and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
Beloved - Toni Morrison, 2007 Book | Powerful novel of slavery and racsim in America. In the novel, the protagonist Sethe is a slave who escapes slavery; after twenty-eight days of freedom, a posse arrives to retrieve her and her children. Sethe kills her two-year-old daughter rather than allow her to be recaptured. A woman presumed to be her daughter, called Beloved, returns years later to haunt Sethe's home at 124 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati, Ohio. Beyoncé's
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"Formation" has drawn comparisons to novelist Toni Morrison.
Sula - Toni Morrison, 1993 Book | In Sula, Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, tells the story of two women--friends since childhood, separated in young adulthood, and reunited as grown women. Nel Wright grows up to become a wife and mother, happy to remain in her hometown of Medallion, Ohio. Sula Peace leaves Medallion to experience college, men, and life in the big city, an exceptional choice for a black woman to make in the late 1920s. Beyoncé's "Formation" has drawn comparisons to novelist Toni Morrison.
The bluest eye - Toni Morrison, 1990,c1970 Book | Toni Morrison's debut novel, about a year in the life of a young black girl named Pecola who develops an inferiority complex due to her eye color and skin appearance. It is set in Lorain, Ohio, against the backdrop of America's Midwest during the years following the Great Depression. Beyoncé's "Formation" has drawn comparisons to novelist Toni Morrison.
The color purple - Alice Walker, 2009 Book | Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of African-American women in the southern United States in the 1930s, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. Beyoncé quoted the movie in the liner notes of her first solo album.
Possessing the secret of joy - Alice Walker, 1992 Book | This novel tells the story of Tashi, an African woman and a minor character in Alice Walker's earlier novel The Color Purple. Now in the US she comes from Olinka, Alice Walker's fictional African nation where female genital mutilation is practiced.
Kindred - Octavia E. Butler, 2014 Book | Part time-travel tale and part slave narrative, this novel is the first-person account of a young African-American woman writer, Dana, who finds herself shuttled between her California home in 1976 and a pre-Civil War Maryland plantation.
Their eyes were watching God - Zora Neale Hurston, 2007 Book | The novel narrates main character Janie Crawford's coming of age, from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman in control of her own destiny. Hurston rejected the Racial Uplift efforts to present African Americans in a way that would accommodate the cultural standards of the white majority, yet she also asserted her work as distinct from the work of fellow Harlem Renaissance writers, celebrating the rural, southern African-American communities as she found them.
On beauty: a novel - Zadie Smith, 2006 Book | Zadie Smith is a British writer whose work frequently addresses issues around race. On Beauty is a novel about two international mixed-race families and discusses ethnic and cultural differences in both the USA and the UK, black identity, the nature of beauty, and the clash between liberal and conservative academic values.
Boy, Snow, Bird. - Helen Oyeyemi, 2015 Book | Oyeyemi, a Nigeria-born British writer, presents this retelling of the Snow White myth. Boy, Snow, Bird is a novel about three women and an unbreakable bond, set against the racial issues in the USA in the 1950s.
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Trumpet - Jackie Kay, 1999 Book | Trumpet is the debut novel of Scottish writer and poet Jackie Kay, and tells the story of an acclaimed black jazz trumpeter, Joss Moody, and the revelation of his biological sex as female after his death, which causes a stir in the public and in his family's life.
Passing - Nella Larsen, 2002 Book | Set primarily in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the 1920s, the story centers on the reunion of two childhood friends—Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield—and their increasing fascination with each other's lives. The title and central theme of the novel refer to the practice of racial "passing;"
Miss Muriel and other stories - Ann Petry, 2008 Book | A collection of stories that captures a remarkably diverse panorama of African-American experience in the 1950s and 1960s.
Brothers and sisters - Bebe Moore Campbell, 2000, c1994 Book | Set in a racially troubled Los Angeles, still healing from the deep scars of riot, violence, and suspicion, this novel tells the story of the challenges that a successful African-American woman deals with in life both professionally and personally, and her disillusionment with the American Dream.
Mourner's Bench - Sanderia Faye, 2015 Book | A novel about growing up in a small rural Arkansas town in the 1960's when powerful winds of change are swirling around the black community, focussing on eigh-year-old Sarah who is torn between the traditions, religion, and work ethic of her community and the progressive civil rights and feminist politics of her mother.
Silver sparrow - Tayari Jones, 2012 Book | A man has two families in the same town. One knows about the other; the other doesn’t. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a story of female friendship and a father's betrayal.
What looks like crazy on an ordinary day - Pearl Cleage, 2009 Book | Cleage's first novel focuses on a black woman who has moved back to her Michigan hometown following a positive diagnosis for HIV.
Poetry (15 items)
Teaching my mother how to give birth - Warsan Shire, 2011 Book | Warsan Shire's first poetry collection. Beyoncé read selections of poems by Warsan Shire in between songs in Lemonade.
for women who are difficult to love - Warsan Shire, Monday, February 6, 2012 at 11:43 AM EST Audio-visual document | Listen to Warsan Shire reading one her poems here. Beyoncé read selections of poems by Warsan Shire in between songs in Lemonade, including this one.
The pity - Poetry Society, 2014 Book | Features poetry by Warsan Shire, amongst others. Beyoncé read selections of poems by Warsan Shire in between songs in Lemonade.
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Just give me a cool drink of water 'fore I diiie: the poetry of Maya Angelou - Maya Angelou, Maya Angelou, 1988 Book | Collection of Maya Angelou's poetry. References to Angelou's work have appeared throughout Beyonce's discography.
Maya Angelou Recites Her Poem "Phenomenal Woman" - 12/5/2013 Audio-visual document | Maya Angelou reciting her inspirational poem. Beyonce played the words of Angelou's classic "Phenomenal Woman" in between songs in concert in 2015.
Collected poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 1968-1998 - Nikki Giovanni, 2007, c2003 Book | Nikki Giovanni is one of the best-known African-American poets who reached prominence during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her work discuss social issues, human relationships, and hip-hop. Read 'Ego Tripping', 'Dreams' and 'W O M A N'
Love in my language - Alexandra Elle Page, 7 July 2014 Book | This body of work explores Elle's journey of being a young mother with baggage and daddy issues, all the while trying to find her way and purpose in life. The pages of "Love in my Language" alternate between short writings and poetry.
Salt - Nayyirah Waheed, 24 September 2013 Book | This collection of poetry explores the realities of multiple identities, language, diasporic life & pain, the self, community, healing, celebration, and love.
Morning Haiku - Sonia Sanchez, ebrary, Inc, 2010 Book | Sonia Sanchez is an African-American poet most often associated with the Black Arts Movement. This volume is a collection of haiku that celebrates the gifts of life and mourns the deaths of revered African American figures in the worlds of music, literature, art, and activism.
"On Things of Which I am Ashamed" - Zora Howard, 12/8/2013 Audio-visual document | Spoken-word performance by poet Zora Howard.
Waffles - Zora Howard, 5/11/2013 Audio-visual document | Spoken-word performance by poet Zora Howard.
Moments, the minutes, the hours : the poetry of Jill Scott - Jill Scott, 2008, c2005 Book | Singer and songwriter Jill Scott's first volume of poetry, containing the same lyrical qualities as her music. You can also find Jill Scott on our Lemonande Syllabus Playlist.
The fat black woman's poems - Grace Nichols, 2000 Book | Nichol's volume of poetry presents images of joy, challenge, and accusation. It includes the fat black woman, who is brash; rejoices in herself; poses awkward questions to politicians, to a white world that turns its back
For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem - Ntozake Shange, 1978 Book | Shange's first work consists of a series of poetic monologues to be accompanied by dance movements and music, a form Shange coined as the choreopoem It tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society.
Selected poems - Gwendolyn Brooks, c1963
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Book | Collection of poetry by the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer prize.Books' work frequently focuses on the life and experiences of a young Black girl as she grows into womanhood in Chicago.
Non-Fiction & Autobiography (8 items)
I know why the caged bird sings - Maya Angelou, 1984 Book | 1969 autobiography about the early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother and ends when Maya becomes a mother at the age of 16. References to Angelou's work have appeared throughout Beyonce's discography.
Even the Stars Look Lonesome - Maya Angelou, 1999 Book | Angelou's second volume of essays, most of which are autobiographical. References to Angelou's work have appeared throughout Beyonce's discography.
Mules and men - Zora Neale Hurston, 2008 Book | 1935 autoethnographical collection of African American folklore collected and written by Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston made a career collecting African-African folklore in the South and hoodoo spiritual practices in the late 1920s and 1930s, themes that Beyoncé channels throughout Lemonade.
Anything we love can be saved: a writer's activism - Alice Walker, 1997 Book | A New York Times best-selling collection of essays by the author of The Color Purple includes an autobiographical essay describing her spiritual growth and activist roots and reflections on religion, feminism, race, and family.
In search of our mothers' garden :womanist prose - Alice Walker, 2005 Book | A collection of 36 essays, articles, reviews, statements, and speeches written by Walker between 1966 and 1982. Many are based on her understanding of "womanist" theory and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
Bone black: memories of girlhood - Bell Hooks, 1997 Book | Stitching together girlhood memories with the finest threads of innocence, feminist intellectual bell hooks presents a powerfully intimate account of growing up in the South.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl : Illustrated & Annotated - Harriet Ann Jacobs, 2012 Book | An autobiography by a young mother and fugitive slave published in 1861
Piece of cake : a memoir - Cupcake Brown, 2006 Book | A puportedly autobiographical tale of addiction and recovery, describing Brown's descent into teenage prostitution and drug addiction.
Black Feminist Studies (24 items)
Moving Beyond Pain - bell hooks, 2016 Article | Feminist writer bell hooks' critique of Beyoncé's Lemonade. Whilst praising its commercial success and its diverse representation of black female bodies, hooks is not
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without her criticisms of the album and Beyoncé's brand of feminism.
We should all be feminists - TEDxEuston - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 12/4/2013 Audio-visual document | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's much-admired, personal and eloquent TEDx talk. This talk was sampled on Beyoncé's 2014 song "***Flawless".
Gender Equality is a Myth! - Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, 2015-12-01 Article | Beyoncé's short essay, published in 2015, calling for gender equality.
Black British feminism: a reader - Heidi Safia Mirza, 1997 Book | A collection of classic texts and new black feminist scholarship, exploring postmodern themes of gendered and racialized exclusion, 'black' identity and social and cultural difference in Britain.
To exist is to resist: black feminism in Europe - 2019 Book
Black woman : an anthology - 2005 Book | A collection of early, emerging works from some of today's most celebrated African American female writers.
Black feminist thought: knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment - Patricia Hill Collins, 2008 Book | Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of a range of prominent thinkers, drawing from fiction, poetry, music and oral history
Ain't I a woman: black women and feminism - Bell Hooks, 1982 Book | In this classic study, cultural critic bell hooks examines how black women, from the seventeenth century to the present day, were and are oppressed by both white men and black men and by white women.
All about love : new visions - Bell Hooks, 2016 Book | “When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.” - this book discusses aspects of love in modern society, dicussing themes similar to Beyonce's Lemonade, which explored suspicion, pain, and emotional intimacy as well as the rumoured infidelity of her husband, Jay Z.
Sisters of the yam: black women and self-recovery - Bell Hooks, c1993 Book | bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism.
Outlaw culture: resisting representations - Bell Hooks, 2006 Book | Targeting cultural icons as diverse as Madonna and Spike Lee, this work presents a collection of feminist explorations
Will to Change : Men, Masculinity,and Love - Bell Hooks, 2005 Book | bell hooks' book explores how everyone needs to love and be loved -- even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves.
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Wish to live: the hip-hop feminism pedagogy reader - 2012 Book | An intergenerational account capturing the contemporary politics and poetics of hip-hop feminism
Home with Hip Hop Feminism : Performances in Communication and Culture: 26 - Aisha S. Durham, 2014 Book | Brings together popular culture and the everyday experiences of black women from the hip hop generation to highlight the discussions about hip hop culture, black feminisms and media representations.
"Under Construction": Identifying Foundations of Hip-Hop Feminism and Exploring Bridges between Black Second-Wave and Hip-Hop Feminisms1 Article | Article about hip-hop-feminism, or 'third-wave' black feminism, with the aim of exploring the sociopolitical platform of hip-hop feminists and how that platform both impacts and figures into the history and future of black American feminist thought.
‘Beyoncé feminism’ and the contestation of the black feminist body - Nathalie Weidhase, 2015-01-02 Article | Article addressing Beyoncé's use of a 'Feminist' sign in her performance the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, and Annie Lennox's response to it, exploring themes of black, white and intersectional feminism.
Sister outsider: essays and speeches - Audre Lorde, c1984 Book | Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change
Home girls: a Black feminist anthology - Barbara Smith, 1983 Book | An anthology of writings by black, lesbian, radical feminist activists, including Gloria T. Hull, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Pat Parker, and Alice Walker.
Words of fire: an anthology of African-American feminist thought - Beverly Guy-Sheftall, 1995 Book | Collected essays and letters from African American feminists, addressing race and gender issues in the United States
Women, race & class - Angela Davis, 1982 Book | Longtime activist, author and political figure Angela Davis brings us this expose of the women's movement in the context of the fight for civil rights and working class issues. She uncovers a different side of the fight for suffrage: the intimate tie between the anti-slavery campaign and the struggle for women's suffrage.
“Check On It”: Beyoncé, Southern booty, and Black femininities in music video - Aisha Durham, 2012-03 Article | This article argues that Beyoncé successfully performs a range of Black femininities, speaking at once to Black working and middle class sensibilities. Taking her 2005 music video for 'Check On It' as her example, the author explores the genus of Beyoncé's success and the beginnings of her transformation from pop star to feminist icon.
Reconstructing womanhood, reconstructing feminism: writings on black women - Delia
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Jarrett Macauley, 1996 Book | Reconstructing Womanhood, Reconstructing Feminism is the first British feminist anthology to examine concepts of womanhood and feminism within the context of `race' and ethnicity. Challenging contemporary feminist theory, the book highlights ways in which constructions of womanhood have traditionally excluded black women's experience, and proposes a reconsideration of terms such as `feminist'.
Welfare is a Women's Issue - Johnnie Tillmon Webpage | Seminal article from Ms Magazine in 1972. "I'm a woman. I'm a black woman. I'm a poor woman. I'm a fat woman. I'm a middle-aged woman. And I'm on welfare."
A Black Feminist Statement - The Combahee River Collective Article | The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist lesbian organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. The Collective was instrumental in highlighting that the white feminist movement was not addressing their particular needs.
English & Critical Theory (14 items)
Callaloo Journal | Callaloo, the premier African and African-American literary journal, publishes original works by and critical studies of black writers worldwide. Access the entire archives here.
Wasafiri Journal | A journal of post-colonial literature that pays attention to the wealth of Black and diasporic writers worldwide. It is Britain's only international magazine for Black British, African, Asian and Caribbean literatures. The journal has featured the work of Warsan Shire, amongst others.
Playing in the dark: whiteness and the literary imagination - Toni Morrison, 1993 Book | Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison brings this personal inquiry into the significance of African-Americans in the American literary imagination. Beyoncé's "Formation" has drawn comparisons to novelist Toni Morrison.
Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness - Simone Browne, 2015 Book | Browne locates the conditions of blackness as a key site through which surveillance is practiced, narrated, and resisted. She shows how contemporary surveillance technologies and practices are informed by the long history of racial formation and by the methods of policing black life under slavery, such as branding, runaway slave notices, and lantern laws.
Black women, writing and identity: migrations of the subject - Carole Boyce Davies, 1994 Book | The book explores a complex and fascinating set of interrelated issues, establishing the significance of such wide-ranging subjects as: gender, heritage and identity, African women's writing and resistance to domination, broadening the discourse surrounding the representation of and by black women and women of colour.
Erotic life of racism - Sharon Patricia Holland, 2012 Book | If racism has an everyday life, how does it remain so powerful and yet mask its very presence? Reemphasizing the black/white binary, Holland argues that only by
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bringing critical race theory, queer theory, and black feminist thought into conversation with each other can we fully envision the relationship between racism and the personal and political dimensions of our desire.
Killing the black body : race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty - Dorothy E. Roberts, 1999 Book | This is a response to the liberal and conservative retreat from an assertive, activist, and socially transformative civil rights agenda of recent years - using a black feminist lens - to produce an argument for a radically new, and socially transformative, definition of "liberty" and "equality".
Afrofuturism: the world of black sci-fi and fantasy culture - Ytasha Womack, 2013 Book | Comprising elements of the avant-garde, science fiction, cutting-edge hip-hop, black comix, and graphic novels, Afrofuturism spans both underground and mainstream pop culture. With a twofold aim to entertain and enlighten, Afrofuturists strive to break down racial, ethnic, and all social limitations to empower and free individuals to be themselves. This book introduces readers to the burgeoning artists creating Afrofuturist works, the history of innovators in the past, and the wide range of subjects they explore
Venus in the dark : blackness and beauty in popular culture - Janell Hobson, 2005 Book | Western culture has long been fascinated by black women, but a history of enslavement and colonial conquest has variously labeled black women's bodies as "exotic" and "grotesque." In this cultural history of black female beauty, Hobson explores the enduring figure of the "Hottentot Venus."
The grasp that reaches beyond the grave: the ancestral call in black women's texts - Venetria K. Patton, ebrary, Inc, c2013 Book | This book investigates the treatment of the ancestor figure in a number of seminal novels in order to understand how they draw on African cosmology and the interrelationship of ancestors, elders, and children to promote healing within the African American community.
The cracks between what we are and what we are supposed to be: essays and interviews - Harryette Romell Mullen, ebrary, Inc, c2012 Book | This text forms an extended consideration not only of Harryette Mullen's own work, methods, and interests as a poet, but also of issues of central importance to African American poetry and language, women's voices, and the future of poetry
Lose your mother : a journey alongthe Atlantic slave route - Saidiya V. Hartman, 2008 Book | Hartman traces the history of the Atlantic slave trade by recounting a journey she took along a slave route in Ghana. Following the trail of captives from the hinterland to the Atlantic coast, she reckons with the blank slate of her own genealogy and dramatizes the effects of slavery on history.
Mamie Bradley’s Unbearable Burden: Sexual and Aesthetic Politics in Bebe Moore Campbell’s Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine - Koritha Mitchell, 2008 Article | Article from Koritha Mitchell. This essay builds on traditions of black feminist criticism to begin explicating what Mitchell calls “homebuilding anxiety”.
Black resonance: iconic women singers and African American literature - Emily J. Lordi, 2013 Book
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Historical & Cultural Studies (16 items)
Bodies in dissent: spectacular performances of race and freedom, 1850-1910 - Daphne Brooks, 2006 Book | Brooks argues that from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, black transatlantic activists, actors, singers, and other entertainers frequently transformed the alienating conditions of social and political marginalization into modes of self-actualization through performance. She describes how these entertainers experimented with different ways of presenting their bodies in public-through dress, movement, and theatrical technologies-to defamiliarize the spectacle of "blackness" in the transatlantic imaginary.
Meaning of freedom - Angela Y. (Angela Yvonne) Davis, 2012 Book | Collection of 12 speeches that explore the nature of freedom. Davis' life and work have been dedicated to examining this and to ending all forms of oppression that deny people their political, cultural, and sexual freedom. Read this whilst listening to Beyoncé's track 'Freedom' for context and more information.
Freedom is a constant struggle : Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement - Angela Y. Davis, 2016 Book | Davis focusses on the global struggle of every movement fighting for social justice in this collection of essays on topics including black feminism, intersectionality, Palestine and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Sister citizen: shame, stereotypes, and Black women in America - Melissa V. Harris-Perry, ebrary, Inc, c2011 Book | Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women's political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images.
Creating Black Americans: African American history and its meanings, 1619 to the present - Nell Irvin Painter, 2005 Book | Painter provides an accessible overview of African-American history, outlining the most significant events from pre-slavery times to the present, all connected through a central motif of art.
Arrested justice: black women, violence, and America's prison nation - Beth Richie, ebrary, Inc, c2012 Book | Black women in marginalized communities are uniquely at risk of battering, rape, sexual harassment, stalking and incest. Through the compelling stories of Black women who have been most affected by racism, persistent poverty, class inequality, limited access to support resources or institutions, Beth E. Richie shows that the threat of violence to Black women has never been more serious, demonstrating how conservative legal, social, political and economic policies have impacted activism in the U.S.-based movement to end violence against women.
Speaking power: Black feminist orality in women's narratives of slavery - DoVeanna S. Fulton, ebrary, Inc, c2006 Book | African American women have consistently employed oral traditions not only to relate the pain and degradation of slavery, but also to celebrate the subversions, struggles, and triumphs of Black experience. Fulton examines orality as a rhetorical strategy, its role in passing on family and personal history, and its ability to empower,
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subvert oppression, assert agency, and create representations for the past.
Scenes of Subjection - Saidiya V. (Assistant Professor Hartman, 1997 Book
Lena Horne: You Must Remember This - You Must Remember This Audio document | Podcast about this history of Hollywood, with this episode focussing on Lena Horne. Signed to a contract by MGM in 1942, she was the first black performer to be given the full glamour girl star-making treatment. However, as time wore on she began to feel like a token. Features extensive audio taken from Horne's interviews.
Sweetwater : black women and narratives of resilience - Robin M. Boylorn, 2013 Book | Part-autobiography, part-ethnography, Sweetwater is about the black female experience as it relates to friendship, family, spirituality, poverty, education, addiction, mental illness, romantic relationships, raising children, and everyday survival.
Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America - Tamara Winfrey Harris, 2015 Book | Brought to life by the stories of real women, this book reveals the effects of anti–black woman propaganda and how real black women are living their lives and pushing back against distorted and pervasive stereotypes and delves into areas such as marriage, motherhood, health, sexuality, beauty, and more.
At the dark end of the street : black women, rape, and resistance-- a new history of the Civil Rights movement from Rosa Parks to the rise of black power - Danielle L. McGuire, 2011 Book | McGuire tells the story of how the Civil Rights Movement began, and the story of Rosa Parks, who by 1955 was among the most radical activists in Alabama.
Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class - Lisa B. Thompson, 2012 Book | Thompson explores the representation of black middle class female sexuality by African American women authors in narrative literature, drama, film, and popular culture, showing how these depictions reclaim black female agency and illustrate the difficulties black women confront in asserting sexual agency in the public sphere.
Young, female and black - Heidi Safia Mirza, 1992 Book | The culimation of a 1992 study of 198 young woman and men in South London, Mirza argues there is a ‘myth of under-achievement’ for black women. The girls in her sample did better in exams than black boys and white pupils in the school, and Mirza believes that in general the educational achievements of black women are underestimated.
Mapping the Louisiana Locations in Beyonce's 'Lemonade' - Lauren Laborde Webpage | Interactive map showing the filiming locations in New Orleans and around Louisiana that Beyoncé used in Lemonade.
The Black power movement: rethinking the civil rights-Black power era - Peniel E. Joseph, 2006 Book | Take a look at chapters 4 - Black women, urban politics, and engendering Black power by Rhonda Y. Williams; 5 - Black feminists respond to Black power masculinism by Kimberly Springer; and 6 -
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The Third World women's alliance : Black feminist radicalism and Black power politics by Stephen Ward
Religion & Womanist Theology (19 items)
Black Women and the Sacred: With "Lemonade" Beyoncé Takes Us to Church - Yolanda Pierce Webpage | Article discussing Lemonade, the Black Church tradition and womanist theology.
Tell my horse: voodoo and life in Haiti and Jamaica. - Zora Neale Hurston, 2009 Book | Based on acclaimed author Zora Neale Hurston's personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer during her visits in the 1930s this is a firsthand account of the mysteries of Voodoo. The supernatural imagery of Lemonade, tied to the African diasporic spiritual practices of New Orleans, are undoubtably inspired by Hurston, who made a career of collecting African-African folklore in the South and hoodoo spiritual practices in the late 1920s and 1930s.
Black magic: religion and the African American conjuring tradition - Yvonne Patricia Chireau, ebrary, Inc, c2003 Book | "Black Magic" looks at the origins, meaning, and uses of Conjure - the African American tradition of healing and harming that evolved from African, European, and American elements - from the slavery period to well into the twentieth century.
Oshun's Daughters : The Search for Womanhood in the Americas - Vanessa K. Valdes, 2015 Book | Beyoncé's yellow dress in the video for 'Hold-Up' is a representation of the Nigerian Yoruba river goddess Oshun. This book examines the ways in which the inclusion of African diasporic religious practices serves as a transgressive tool in narrative discourses in the Americas.
Women in the Yoruba religious sphere - Oyeronke Olajubu, ebrary, Inc, c2003 Book | Lemonade makes many references to Yoruba religious practices. This book is an exploration of gender and power relations in Yoruba religion, and the role women play.
Stand your ground: Black bodies and the justice of God. - Kelly Brown Douglas, 2015 Book | The 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager in Florida, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, brought public attention to controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. This book is an attempt to take seriously social and theological questions raised by this and similar stories, and to answer black church people's questions of justice and faith in response to the call of God.
Womanist theological ethics : a reader - 2011 Book | Writing across theological disciplines, nine African American women scholars reflect on what it means to live as responsible doers of justice and as a part of womanist scholarship in the service of the black community
Introduction to womanist biblical interpretation. - Nyasha Junior, 2015 Book | This book argues that womanist biblical interpretation is not simply a byproduct of feminist biblical interpretation but part of a distinctive tradition of African American women's engagement with biblical texts.
14/18 09/26/21 Lemonade Syllabus | University of Roehampton
Sexuality and the Black church: a womanist perspective - Kelly Brown Douglas, 1999 Book | In this study of the importance of sexuality and sexual discourse to the Christian theological mandate and to Black churches, Douglas examines the function of sexuality in White culture and the denigration and exploitation of Black sexuality and the function and role of sexuality in the Black church and community
Womanist ethics and the cultural production of evil - Emilie Maureen Townes, ebrary, Inc, 2006 Book | Deconstructing memory, history, and myth as received wisdom, the volume critically examines racism, sexism, poverty, and stereotypes.
Hope in the holler : a womanist theology - A. Elaine Brown (Anna Elaine Brown) Crawford, 2002 Book | Black women have embodied a theology charactierised by hope which has enabled them to overcome a history of abuse and violence.
Sisters in the wilderness: the challenge of womanist God-talk - Delores S. Williams, c1993 Book | This landmark work first published 20 years ago helped establish the field of African-American womanist theology and is widely regarded as a classic text.
Enfleshing freedom : body, race, and being - M. Shawn (Mary Shawn) Copeland, 2010 Book | Being human is neither abstract nor hypothetical. It is concrete, visceral, and embodied in the everyday experience and relationships that determine who we are. In that case, argues distinguished theologian Shawn Copeland, we have much to learn from the embodied experience of black women who, for centuries, have borne in their bodies the identities and pathologies of those in power.
Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength - Chanequa Walker-Barnes, 2014 Book | In this book, the author, a psychologist and pastoral theologian, examines the burdensome yoke that the ideology of the 'Strong Black Woman' places upon African American women.
Womanist pastoral theology against intimate and cultural violence - Stephanie M. Crumpton, 2013 Book | Firsthand narratives provide an ethnographic snapshot of how black women encounter intimate violence, while the text also raises concerns over existing care paradigms in relation to approaches healing and spirituality.
Between Sundays : Black women and everyday struggles of faith - Marla Faye Frederick, 2003 Book | To be a black woman of faith in the American South is to understand and experience spirituality in a particular way. This book takes readers beyond common misconceptions and narrow assumptions about black religion and into the actual complexities of African American women's spiritual lives.
White women's Christ and black women's Jesus: feminist christology and womanist response - Jacquelyn Grant, 1989 Book | Feminist christology confronts the dual tasks of explaining the significance of a male God-bearer for women and creating a christological model adequate to feminist experience. Grant revisits challenges of feminist christology and argues that, because it has reflected the experience of white women predominantly, it fails to speak to the
15/18 09/26/21 Lemonade Syllabus | University of Roehampton
concerns of non-white and non-western women.
Gender, power, and persuasion : the Genesis narratives and contemporary portraits - Mignon R. Jacobs, 2007 Book | Taking a philisophical approach, this book addresses centuries-old misconceptions about biblical narratives that have been used to perpetuate gender roles, reinforce biases, and wield power.
Yoruba in diaspora: an African church in London - Hermione Harris, ebrary, Inc, 2006 Book | Lemonade makes many references to Yoruba religious practices. This book explores how these practices integrate with religious life for the Nigerian diaspora in London, exploring a world prayer, spirit possession, and divination through dreams and visions.
Film (13 items)
The Color Purple (1985) - Saturday, 19 Sep 2015 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. Adaptation of the novel by Alice Walker. Beyoncé quoted the movie in the liner notes of her first solo album.
Daughters of the Dust - Julie Dash, 1999 Audio-visual document | Available on DVD via the University Library. Narrated by a character called Unborn Child, the film tells the story of three generations of Gullah women in the Peazant family on St. Helena Island in 1902 as they prepare to migrate to the North. It is the first feature film directed by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States. The visuals in Lemonade have been compared with Arthur Jafa's cinematography in this film.
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) - Saturday, 29 Aug 2015 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. Oscar-nominated drama. A young girl called Hushpuppy and her father find their Louisiana community threatened by an approaching hurricane. Quvenzhané Wallis, who played Hushpuppy, makes a cameo appearance in Lemonade.
Nina Simone: A Tribute - Wednesday, 7 Apr 2010 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. Friends and artists pay tribute to the great singer, songwriter, pianist and activist Nina Simone. Simone was channelled on Beyoncé's Lemonade; we hear her singing "The Look of Love" to usher in Beyoncé's ballad "Sandcastles."
Nina Simone and Me with Laura Mvula - Monday, 7 Sep 2015 Audio-visual document | British soul singer Laura Mvula travels to New York to celebrate and explore the musical roots of the Nina songs that mean most to her. Performing with a Harlem gospel choir, uncovering the influence of Nina’s classical training and meeting Simone’s long-time guitarist Al Shackman, Laura presents a personal tribute to the genius of her musical hero.
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Monday 6 Sep 2010 at 23:35 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. Adaptation of the novel by Zora
16/18 09/26/21 Lemonade Syllabus | University of Roehampton
Neale Hurston. Halle Berry plays a young free-spirited African-American woman who searches for happiness by plunging into several marriages, challenging her small-town community.
The Princess and the Frog (2009) - Saturday, 10 Sep 2016 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. Disney animation. In 1920s New Orleans, a hard-working waitress finds herself transformed into a frog by an indolent prince. The ninth Disney Princess, Tiana is the first to be of African-American heritage. The African diasporic spiritual practices of New Orleans depicted in the film are called upon throughout Beyoncé's Lemonade videos, and New Orleans chef, Leaf Chase, who has a cameo in Lemonade, is said to have inspired Tiana's character.
Carmen Jones - Tuesday 2 Feb 2010 at 03:00 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. Screen version of the musical "Carmen Jones," which adapted Bizet's opera Carmen for an African-American cast.
Eve's Bayou - Kasi Lemmons, 2002 Audio-visual document | Available to watch online via BoB Roehampton. Over the course of a long, hot Louisiana summer, a 10-year-old black girl, Eve Batiste, discovers that her family's affluent existence is merely a facade. This film marks the directorial debut of Kasi Lemmons.
The Secret Life of Bees (2008) - Monday, 30 Nov 2015 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. An abused teen (Dakota Fanning) seeks peace, purpose and freedom from racism with a beekeeper (Queen Latifah) amid the violent struggle for civil rights in 1960s USA.
Precious - Monday 27 Aug 2012 at 22:30 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. In Harlem, an illiterate teenager, pregnant for the second time, is invited to enrol in an alternative school in the hope that it will change her life for the better. Under the patient, firm guidance of her new teacher, Ms. Rain, Precious begins the journey from oppression to self-determination.
Skin - Saturday 3 Jul 2010 at 23:25 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. Drama based on the true story of Sandra Laing (Sophie Okonedo), a black woman who - due to a rare genetic irregularity - was born to white Afrikaner parents in 1950s South Africa.
Imitation of Life (1959) - Saturday, 5 Mar 2016 Audio-visual document | Lana Turner and Juanita Moore star as mistress and servant, both mothers to daughters. One woman is a successful actress with little time for her child, the other a black maid whose light-skinned daughter rejects her, in order to pass as a white woman.
Art, Photography & Performance (9 items)
2014 MTV Video Music Awards - Saturday 27 Sep 2014 at 16:30 Audio-visual document | Watch online via BoB National. Beyoncé's live performance at the MTV VMAs in 2014. This performance saw her on stage in front of a Feminist sign, sparking news coverage around the world.
17/18 09/26/21 Lemonade Syllabus | University of Roehampton
Beyoncé - "Formation" - Full Performance at Super Bowl 2016 - 7/2/2016 Audio-visual document | Beyoncé's headline-making performance of "Formation", a song from Lemonade, at the Superbowl in 2016. The performance includes dancers in Black Panther berets performing black power salutes, in a tribute to the protests against racial discrimination that have been surging through America, in the form of civil rights grassroots movements such as Black Lives Matter.
Pipilotti Rist - Ever is Over All - 11/5/2009 Audio-visual document | In “Hold Up”, Beyoncé wields a baseball bat, smashing cars and police surveillance cameras. The visual pays tribute to Pipilotti Rist’s 1997 “Ever is Over All” installation.
Terence Nance Website | The Afrofuturist work of Terence Nance has been cited as an influence on the visuals of Lemonade. Explore more of his work here.
Carrie Mae Weems Website | The black and white still images of women and nature present throughout Lemonade have been compared, by bell hooks, to the work of photographer and artist Carrie Mae Weems.
In the break: the aesthetics of the Black radical tradition - Fred Moten, ebrary, Inc, c2003 Book
Dancing in the light: six dances by African-American choreographers - Madison Davis Lacy, American Dance Festival, 2007 Audio-visual document | Available on DVD in the University Library. Showcasing 6 historic dance compositions by African American choreographers.
Yoruba performance, theatre and politics - Glenn Odom, 2015 Book | Written by an academic at Roehampton, this book explores the connections between traditional performance, contemporary theatre and the political sphere in the context of the Yorùbá people in Nigeria.
An Exhibition About Black Lives, with a Gendered Focus Article | Review of 'I Can’t Breathe', a 2016 exhibition about women and the Black Lives Matter movement. Includes links to further information and works by the artists featured.
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