How Black Feminism Takes Place

This dissertation explores how younger generations of Black feminists interpret,

collaborate with, and engage with the ideas and ideals of their so-called "Second Wave"

Black feminist fore-sisters. Many of these women, including Alice Walker, Barbara

Smith, Michele Wallace, bell hooks, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Angela Davis, and Johnnetta

Cole, remain enormously influential and continue to organize, write, teach, and produce

art and scholarship. The late Audre Lorde, the "black, lesbian, warrior, poet, mother"

who integrally claimed and celebrated all of her differences is arguably one of the

world's most revered and cited Black feminist theorists in this the 86th anniversary of her

birth. Intergenerational Black feminists-and people of all colors throughout the world-

study, celebrate, and teach her words and ideas. Throughout this study, I consider how

Lorde's ideas are a touchstone for intergenerational Black feminist activism and cultural

production in the new millennium. My research lies at the intersection of African

American feminism, cultural studies, Women of Color feminisms, and Black Queer

Studies. I engage with scholarship in the arenas of literary criticism, history, cinema,

visual culture, political science, philosophy, sociology, as well as legal scholars of the

Critical Race Movement. I also consider my own location within this debate.