Tell 'Em Boy Bye
Zora Neale Hurston and the Importance of Refusal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2227610 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lynn Stewart (0000-0001-7152-2672, corresponding author), Lindsey Stewart (0000-0003-3104-7197) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 57-77 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/709218 |
| OpenAlex | W3084080746 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 14 |
Although she was intellectually outcasted during her lifetime, Zora Neale Hurston and her “controversial” politics have been reclaimed by feminists (especially black feminists) since Alice Walker’s 1975 “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston,” first published in Ms. Magazine. In what Kristie Dotson calls a deliberate “act of inheritance,” I contribute to existing black feminist scholarship on the theme of self-respect in Hurston’s work by analyzing its relationship to acts of refusal and black spirituality within a contemporary context. By “self-respect,” I mean maintaining a positive valuation of the self (or one’s social group) that reflects one’s dignity. While there are many ways that self-respect can be achieved, as well as many degrees to which the self can be respected, I am interested in a special case: when self-respect mandates a refusal. I argue that reinterpreting Hurston’s racial politics as refusal, rather than conservatism, reveals the latent racism, disguised as regionalism, in popular liberal discourse. I advance this interpretation of Hurston’s position not to say this is the “real” Hurston (many Hurston scholars point out that she had many faces). Rather, through providing this alternative reading, I aim to provide resources for current problems black folks face today in Northern, white, liberal spaces
Aesthetics · Art · Conservatism · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Racism · Scholarship · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Race, History, and American Society
Zora Neale Hurston
Invisibility blues
The Imperative of Integration
The Sexual Contract
Politics of Piety
Work the Root
Every Tub Must Sit on its Own Bottom
Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God
The ruse of consent and the anatomy of 'refusal
Zora Neale Hurston and the Brown Debate
Consent's Revenge
Theorizing Refusal
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |