Michelle M Wright
Biographic Data
| ID | 140204 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle M Wright |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle M |
| FAMILY NAME | Wright |
| SIGNATURE | WRIGHT M M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northwestern University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
A world without most of us
In this essay I review Achille Mbembe Critique of Black Reason by offering a critical analysis through both postcolonial and earlier Enlightenment thought on notions of reason and critique. The review concludes by arguing that Mbembe's narrow focus on specific Black populations to speak for the whole of the world, and the lack of discussion on gender and sexuality render an otherwise promising project with few applicable or actionable concepts
Notes of a Native Son
Interview
The Souls of Black Queer Female Folk
Several months ago, Louis Chude-Sokei asked me to submit a piece for The Black Scholar’s fiftieth anniversary special edition, “What Was Black Studies?” As is perhaps almost always inevitable with
Diaspora and Entanglement
This essay interrogates rising interest in the concept of “entanglement” by Black studies scholars. Beginning with its definition in theoretical physics, the essay moves to Karen Barad’s “agential realism” to explore how diasporic ways of knowing are used to define and connect Black identities across space and time. The majority of the essay focuses on close readings of two contemporary novels on diasporic pasts, presents, and futures, Yaa Gyasi’…
Physics of Blackness
Reveals how assumptions we make about time and space inhibit more inclusive definitions of Blackness. What does it mean to be Black? If Blackness is not biological in origin but socially and discursively constructed, does the meaning of Blackness change over time and space? In Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology, Michelle M. Wright argues that although we often explicitly define Blackness as a “what,” it in fact always op…
Can I call you Black? The limits of authentic heteronormativity in African Diasporic discourse
This article argues that the assumption of a ‘normative’ and ‘authentic’ blackness that girds many dominant discourses on blackness in African Diaspora studies effectively marginalizes those black identities read outside of heteronormativity. Beginning with an essay by Black British political scientist Barnor Hesse, in which his British identity was implicitly read as less authentic, the article then compares and contrasts the introductions to Th…
Race's Real Threat
Physics of Blackness
Black in Time
This paper explores the way in which contemporary physics offers different categories of time, or temporal coordinates, that can help shed life on the “closed” epistemologies in African Diaspora Studies. Using the example of Kamari Clarke's “New Spheres of Transnational Formations: Mobilizations of Humanitarian Diasporas,” this article argues that Clarke's use of what physicists refer to as “B series time” provides a broader, more inclusive epist…
The Retreat
The Retreat Michelle M. Wright (bio) The Invite What was Charles up to?!? When he called to invite me to Callaloo’s literary and cultural retreat in New Orleans, I remember thinking that I was one of the worst people to bring in to discuss the gap between literary critics and creative writers in African-American studies because I don’t see the two groups (admittedly not always mutually exclusive) as naturally or even needing to be connected. I te…
What is Black Identity ?”
Cet article examine la généalogie de l’identité noire en Occident, depuis le Nègre que les Lumières «inventent» jusqu ’aux contre-discours produits au XXe siècle par les écrivains et philosophes de la diaspora africaine. A travers la double perspective de son expérience personnelle et de l’étude critique des discours, Michelle M. Wright analyse l ’interaction du genre, de la sexualité, du savoir et du pouvoir dans la construction, toujours subver…
Becoming Black
Others-from-Within from Without
This essay analyzes Black German articulations of identity through a close reading of the poetry of Germany's most prominent Black German literary and political figure, the late May Opitz-Ayim. Her reading of what she terms an "Afro-German counter-discourse" emphasizes the necessity of theorizing Black identity critically and comparatively in a manner that allows for understanding the similarities between different Black communities without the e…
Nigger Peasants from France
Callaloo - Volume 22, Number 4, Fall 1999
Ethnic Identities in a Transnational World
Journal Article Ethnic Identities in a Transnational World Get access Ethnic Identities in a Transnational World. Edited by John F. Stack, Westport, Conn., London: Greenwood. 1981. 226 pp. Index. £21.95. $27.50. M. Wright M. Wright 1University College of Wales, Aberystwyth Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 59, Issue 2, Spring 1983, Pages 281–282, https://doi.org/10.2307/2619977 …
Can I call you Black? The limits of authentic heteronormativity in African Diasporic discourse
This article argues that the assumption of a ‘normative’ and ‘authentic’ blackness that girds many dominant discourses on blackness in African Diaspora studies effectively marginalizes those black identities read outside of heteronormativity. Beginning with an essay by Black British political scientist Barnor Hesse, in which his British identity was implicitly read as less authentic, the article then compares and contrasts the introductions to Th…
Others-from-Within from Without
This essay analyzes Black German articulations of identity through a close reading of the poetry of Germany's most prominent Black German literary and political figure, the late May Opitz-Ayim. Her reading of what she terms an "Afro-German counter-discourse" emphasizes the necessity of theorizing Black identity critically and comparatively in a manner that allows for understanding the similarities between different Black communities without the e…
The Souls of Black Queer Female Folk
Several months ago, Louis Chude-Sokei asked me to submit a piece for The Black Scholar’s fiftieth anniversary special edition, “What Was Black Studies?” As is perhaps almost always inevitable with
What is Black Identity ?”
Cet article examine la généalogie de l’identité noire en Occident, depuis le Nègre que les Lumières «inventent» jusqu ’aux contre-discours produits au XXe siècle par les écrivains et philosophes de la diaspora africaine. A travers la double perspective de son expérience personnelle et de l’étude critique des discours, Michelle M. Wright analyse l ’interaction du genre, de la sexualité, du savoir et du pouvoir dans la construction, toujours subver…
Nigger Peasants from France
Callaloo - Volume 22, Number 4, Fall 1999
Ethnic Identities in a Transnational World
Journal Article Ethnic Identities in a Transnational World Get access Ethnic Identities in a Transnational World. Edited by John F. Stack, Westport, Conn., London: Greenwood. 1981. 226 pp. Index. £21.95. $27.50. M. Wright M. Wright 1University College of Wales, Aberystwyth Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 59, Issue 2, Spring 1983, Pages 281–282, https://doi.org/10.2307/2619977 …
Nigger Peasants from France
Callaloo - Volume 22, Number 4, Fall 1999
Others-from-Within from Without
This essay analyzes Black German articulations of identity through a close reading of the poetry of Germany's most prominent Black German literary and political figure, the late May Opitz-Ayim. Her reading of what she terms an "Afro-German counter-discourse" emphasizes the necessity of theorizing Black identity critically and comparatively in a manner that allows for understanding the similarities between different Black communities without the e…
Becoming Black
What is Black Identity ?”
Cet article examine la généalogie de l’identité noire en Occident, depuis le Nègre que les Lumières «inventent» jusqu ’aux contre-discours produits au XXe siècle par les écrivains et philosophes de la diaspora africaine. A travers la double perspective de son expérience personnelle et de l’étude critique des discours, Michelle M. Wright analyse l ’interaction du genre, de la sexualité, du savoir et du pouvoir dans la construction, toujours subver…
The Retreat
The Retreat Michelle M. Wright (bio) The Invite What was Charles up to?!? When he called to invite me to Callaloo’s literary and cultural retreat in New Orleans, I remember thinking that I was one of the worst people to bring in to discuss the gap between literary critics and creative writers in African-American studies because I don’t see the two groups (admittedly not always mutually exclusive) as naturally or even needing to be connected. I te…
Physics of Blackness
Black in Time
This paper explores the way in which contemporary physics offers different categories of time, or temporal coordinates, that can help shed life on the “closed” epistemologies in African Diaspora Studies. Using the example of Kamari Clarke's “New Spheres of Transnational Formations: Mobilizations of Humanitarian Diasporas,” this article argues that Clarke's use of what physicists refer to as “B series time” provides a broader, more inclusive epist…
Can I call you Black? The limits of authentic heteronormativity in African Diasporic discourse
This article argues that the assumption of a ‘normative’ and ‘authentic’ blackness that girds many dominant discourses on blackness in African Diaspora studies effectively marginalizes those black identities read outside of heteronormativity. Beginning with an essay by Black British political scientist Barnor Hesse, in which his British identity was implicitly read as less authentic, the article then compares and contrasts the introductions to Th…
Race's Real Threat
Physics of Blackness
Reveals how assumptions we make about time and space inhibit more inclusive definitions of Blackness. What does it mean to be Black? If Blackness is not biological in origin but socially and discursively constructed, does the meaning of Blackness change over time and space? In Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology, Michelle M. Wright argues that although we often explicitly define Blackness as a “what,” it in fact always op…
Diaspora and Entanglement
This essay interrogates rising interest in the concept of “entanglement” by Black studies scholars. Beginning with its definition in theoretical physics, the essay moves to Karen Barad’s “agential realism” to explore how diasporic ways of knowing are used to define and connect Black identities across space and time. The majority of the essay focuses on close readings of two contemporary novels on diasporic pasts, presents, and futures, Yaa Gyasi’…
The Souls of Black Queer Female Folk
Several months ago, Louis Chude-Sokei asked me to submit a piece for The Black Scholar’s fiftieth anniversary special edition, “What Was Black Studies?” As is perhaps almost always inevitable with
Interview
Notes of a Native Son
A world without most of us
In this essay I review Achille Mbembe Critique of Black Reason by offering a critical analysis through both postcolonial and earlier Enlightenment thought on notions of reason and critique. The review concludes by arguing that Mbembe's narrow focus on specific Black populations to speak for the whole of the world, and the lack of discussion on gender and sexuality render an otherwise promising project with few applicable or actionable concepts
Sociology (12 works) · Art (8 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Race, History, and American Society (7 works) · Art history (5 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Politics (5 works)