The Politics of Black Joy

“The Politics of Black Joy cracks open the complexities of southern Blackness by offering an intriguing and underutilized approach—Black joy—to address how the South sits at the crux of racial performance, agency, and gender. At the center of Lindsey Stewart's theorization is Zora Neale Hurston, a southern literary and cultural icon whose genius is revisited every generation. Stewart demonstrates a mastery of not only scholarship about Hurston’s life and writing but ties it together with her own analysis to create a work that refreshes criticism surrounding Hurston and her contemporaries to gain a better understanding of southern Black life and culture.” —Regina N. Bradley, author of Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South