How Black caretakers navigate and negotiate their function in service, sacrifice, and struggle for liberation: Joy James on the Captive Maternal's journey through five stages of rebellion, resistance, and love.
Joy James
Joy James is Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities at Williams College. She is the author of Resisting State Violence; Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics, Transcending the Talented Tenth and Seeking the Beloved Community. James has published numerous articles on: political theory, police, prison and slavery abolition; radicalizing feminisms; diasporic antiblack racism; and US politics; and writes on the Captive Maternal through the lens of "The Womb of Western Theory." Creator of the digital Harriet Tubman Literary Circle at UT Austin, James is editor of The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings; Imprisoned Intellectuals;Warfare in the American Homeland; The Angela Y. Davis Reader; and co-editor of the Black Feminist Reader. James's most recent book is In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love, and her forthcoming book is New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the Afterlife of Erica Garner.
