Black Feminist Thought Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

In Black Feminist Thought , originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of black feminist intellectuals and writers.?She?provides an interpretive framework for the work of? a range of prominent thinkers and draws from fiction, poetry, music and oral history, to provide a?superbly crafted and revolutionary book that?gave the first synthetic overview of black feminist thought and its canon.

In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, both within the academy and without.Here Collinsprovides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. Drawing from fiction, poetry, music and oral history, the result is a superbly crafted and revolutionary book that provided the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought and its canon.

Preface to the First Edition. Preface to the Second Edition. Acknowledgements Part 1: The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought 1. The Politics of Black Feminist Thought 2. Distinguishing Features of Black Feminist Thought Part 2: Core Themes in Black Feminist Thought 3. Work, Family and Black Women's Oppression 4. Mammies, Matriarchs and other Controlling Images 5. The Power of Self-Definition 6. The Sexual Politics of Black Womanhood 7. Black Women's Love Relationships 8. Black Women and Motherhood 9. Rethinking Black Women's Activism Part 3: Black Feminism, Knowledge and Power 10. US Black Feminism in Transnational Context 11. Black Feminist Epistemology 12. Toward a Politics of Empowerment

Patricia Hill Collins (1948-) is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Black Feminist Thought is the best known of the many published works that have made her one of the leading American thinkers of our day.