Academic Books by and about Black Women – 2020 Edition

It’s that time of year again! Since 2017 I’ve compiled a list of books written by or about Black women and Black feminism. This year’s list is somewhat short, likely due to delayed publication dates for some projects.

As always, please contact me if you don’t see a book on the list. The only requirement is that it was published in 2020 and written by or about Black women or Black feminism throughout the diaspora. Most of these books are written by U.S.-based authors, so suggestions written by non-U.S. authors are most welcome!

1. Preaching the Blues: Black Feminist Performance in Lynching Plays – Maisha S. Akbar
2. Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy – April Baker-Bell
3. A Black Women’s History of the United States – Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
4. Black South African Women’s Novels as Feminism – Barbara Boswell
5. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America– Marcia Chatelain
6. Demystifying the Engineering PhD – Monica Cox
7. Duty Beyond the Battlefield: African American Soldiers Fight for Racial Uplift, Citizenship, and Manhood, 1870-1920 – Le’Trice D. Donaldson
8. Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law and the Making of a White Argentine Republic – Erika Edwards
9. Relative Races: Genealogies of Interracial Kinship in Nineteenth-Century America – Brigitte Fielder
10. Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement – Tiffany N. Florvil
11. Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press – Kim Gallon
12. The Women’s Fight: The Civil War’s Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation – Thavolia Glymph
13. Intersectional Tech: The Transmediated Praxis of Black Users in Digital Gaming – Kishonna Gray
14. Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals – Alexis Pauline Gumbs
15. Black Mothers and Attachment Parenting – Patricia Hamilton
16. The Ethos of Black Motherhood in America – Kimberly C. Harper
17. Veil and Vow: Marriage Matters in Contemporary African American Culture – Aneeka Ayanna Henderson
18. Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World – Zakiyyah Iman Jackson
19. The Age of Phillis – Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
20. Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World – Jessica Marie Johnson
21. Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry – Angela Jones
22. Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All – Martha S. Jones
23. Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire – Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel
24. Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice – Zakiya Luna
25. From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture – Koritha Mitchell
26. Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France– Robin Mitchell
27. Laughing to Keep From Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-first Century – Danielle Fuentes Morgan
28. Dengos e zangas das mulheres-moringas: vivências afetivo-sexuais de mulheres negras – Bruna Pereira
29. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies – Deesha Philyaw
30. Infamous Bodies: Early Black Women’s Celebrity and the Afterlives of Rights– Samantha Pinto
31. »Schwarze Schwester Angela« – Die DDR und Angela Davis: Kalter Krieg, Rassismus und Black Power 1965-1975 – Heidelberg University’s Faculty of Philosophy
32. Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism – Allissa V. Richardson
33. Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon – Jeremy Schipper and Nyasha Junior
34. Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen– Samantha N. Sheppard
35. Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage – Dianne M. Stewart
36. Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty – Cheryl Thompson
37. Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity – Artress Bethany White
38. Steve Biko: The Radical Gospel of Black Consciousness – Traci D. Wyatt

Thank you to the following people for submitting additional titles: Linda Garber; Patricia Hamilton; Andre E. Johnson; Bruna Pereira; Ariel Stevenson; Artress Bethany White;