Excavating Black Queer Thought: A Pride Bibliography (Part III)

In honor of Pride Month 2021, I wanted to extend the list of texts from the bibliography offered last year, ranging from traditional academic texts to memoirs and poetry collections, illuminating the multiplicity of experiences that exist within Black LGBTQIA+ life and excavating histories of Black queer life and thought that have been intentionally excluded and overlooked. Though this list is in no way an exhaustive one, comprising all texts in some way related to Black queerness, it includes some texts that are foundational to the field of Black Queer Studies, as well as more recent works that build on the theories and frameworks offered in the foundational texts from a variety of angles. It remains my hope that this list reflects the ways in which Black feminist and Black queer studies have created and propagated alternative epistemologies — ways of knowing and producing knowledge(s) — within institutions that often deem personal narratives and experiences insignificant and outside in the hostile world. 

• Alexander, M. Jacqui. Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.
• Allen, Andrea S., Cherelle, Lauren. Lez Talk: A Collection of Black Lesbian Short Fiction. Charleston: BLF Press, 2016. 
• Allen, Jafari S. There’s a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021. 
• Avilez, GerShun. Black Queer Freedom: Spaces of Injury and Paths of Desire. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020. 
• Bailey, Marlon. Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013.
• Baldwin, James. Just Above My Head. New York: Dial Press, 1979. 
• Best, Stephen. None Like Us: Blackness, Belonging, and Aesthetic Life. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. 
• Bost, Darius. Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018.
• Brand, Dionne. No Language is Neutral. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990. 
• Clarke, Cheryl. Living as a Lesbian. Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1986. 
• Cohen, Cathy. Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
• Colbert, Soyica. Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021. 
• Crawley, Ashon T. The Lonely Letters. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.
• Davis, Adrienne D. and the BSE Collective. Black Sexual Economies: Race and Sex in a Culture of Capital. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019.
• Dennis-Benn, Nicole. Patsy. New York: Liveright Publishing, 2019.
• Dixon, Melvin. Vanishing Rooms. New York: Plume Books, 1992, 2nd edition. 
• Ellis, Nadia. Territories of the Soul: Queered Belonging in the Black Diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015.
• Ellison, Treva, Green, Marshall (Kai M.), Richardson, Matt, Snorton, C. Riley. The Issue of Blackness, special issue of Transgender Studies Quarterly. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
• Emezi, Akwaeke. Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir. New York: Riverhead Books, 2021. 
• Ferguson, Roderick A. Aberrations in Black: Towards a Queer of Color Critique. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
• Gallon, Kim. Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020. 
• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Dub: Finding Ceremony. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.
• Hartman, Saidiya. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval. New York: W.W. & Norton Company, 2019.
• Hayes. Eileen M. Songs in Black and Lavender. Race, Sexual Politics, and Women’s Music. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010. 
• Henry, Alvin J. Black Queer Flesh: Rejecting Subjectivity in the African American Novel. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021. 
• Horton-Stallings, LaMonda. Mutha’ Is Half a Word: Intersections of Folklore, Vernacular, Myth, and Queerness in Black Female Culture. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2007. 
• Jackson, Zakiyyah Iman. Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an AntiBlack World. New York: New York University Press, 2020. 
• Johnson, E. Patrick. No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.
• Jones, Briona Simone. Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought. New York: The New Press, 2021. 
• Jones, Jr., Robert. The Prophets. New York: Penguin Random House, 2021. 
• Jordan, June. Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays of June Jordan. New York: Basic/Civitas Books, 2002.
• Keeling, Kara. The Witch’s Flight: The Cinematic, the Black Femme, and the Image of Common Sense. Durham: Dune University Press, 2007.
• Kenan, Randall. A Visitation of Spirits. New York: Grove Press, 1989.
• Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. New York: Crossing Press, 1982.
• Macharia, K’eguro. Frottage: Frictions of Intimacy Across the Black Diaspora. New York: New York University Press, 2019.
• Marsh, Roya. dayliGht. New York: MCD X Fsg Originals, 2020. 
• Mase III, J, Edidi, Jane Figueroa. The Black Trans Prayer Book. Lulu.com, 2020. 
• McBride, Dwight, Carbado, Devon. Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction. Jersey City: Cleis Press, 2011, 2nd edition. 
• Mendez, Paul. Rainbow Milk. New York: Doubleday Publishing, 2021. 
• Moore, Lisa C. Does Your Mama Know?: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories. Washington D.C.: Redbone Press, 1997. 
• Moore, Mignon R. Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood Among Black Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. 
• Musser, Amber Jamilla. Sensational Flesh: Race, Power, and Masochism. New York: New York University Press, 2014. 
• Nagarajan, Chitra, Mohammed, Azeenarh, Aliyu, Rafeeyat. She Called Me Woman: Nigeria’s Queer Women Speak. Abuja-London: Cassava Republic Press, 2018. 
• Okparanta, Chinelo. Under the Udala Trees. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 
• Parker, Pat. An Expanded Edition of Movement in Black. Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1999. 
• Philyaw, Deesha. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2020. 
• Pritchard, Eric Darnell. Fashioning Lives: Black Queers and the Politics of Literacy. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016.
• Ross, Marlon B. Manning the Race: Reforming Black Men in the Jim Crow Era. New York: New York University Press, 2004.
• Royster, Francesca T. Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012. 
• Saint, Assotto. Spells of a Voodoo Doll. New York: Masquerade Books, 1996. 
• Scott, Darieck. Extravagant Abjection: Blackness, Power, and Sexuality in the African American Literary Imagination. New York: New York University Press, 2010.
• Sharpe, Christina. Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.
• Smith, Barbara. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983.
• Smith, Danez. Homie. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2020.
• Sneed, Pamela. Funeral Diva. San Francisco: City Lights Publisher, 2020.
• Snorton, C. Riley. Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
• Somerville, Siobhan. Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.
• Stockton, Kathryn. Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer.” Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. 
• Strongman, Roberto. Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé Santería, and Vodou. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.
• Sullivan, Mecca Jamilah. The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. 
• Quashie, Kevin. Black Aliveness or the Poetics of Being. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021.  
• Walcott, Rinaldo. Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora, and Black Studies. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2016.
• Wekker, Gloria. The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 
• Welbon, Yvonne, Juhasz, Alexandra. Sisters in the Life: History of Out African American Lesbian Media-Making. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018.