The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies

In The Black Shoals Tiffany Lethabo King uses the shoal-an offshore geologic formation that is neither land nor sea-as metaphor, mode of critique, and methodology to theorize the encounter between Black studies and Native studies. King conceptualizes the shoal as a space where Black and Native literary traditions, politics, theory, critique, and art meet in productive, shifting, and contentious ways. These interactions, which often foreground Black and Native discourses of conquest and critiques of humanism, offer alternative insights into understanding how slavery, anti-Blackness, and Indigenous genocide structure white supremacy. Among texts and topics, King examines eighteenth-century British mappings of humanness, Nativeness, and Blackness; Black feminist depictions of Black and Native erotics; Black fungibility as a critique of discourses of labor exploitation; and Black art that rewrites conceptions of the human. In outlining the convergences and disjunctions between Black and Native thought and aesthetics, King identifies the potential to create new epistemologies, lines of critical inquiry, and creative practices.

Author: Tiffany Lethabo King
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 08/23/2019
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781478006367
ISBN10: 1478006366
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | African American & Black Studies
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Native American Studies
- Social Science | Gender Studies

About the Author
Tiffany Lethabo King is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Georgia State University.