Black Feminist Sociology

This new edition of Black Feminist Sociology offers revised and updated chapters on the history, contours, and prospects of the Black feminist tradition in sociology.

This volume offers new writings by established and emerging scholars working in a Black feminist sociological tradition that provide important attention to transnational Black feminist perspectives, Black feminist inspirations toward abolition and imagination, and Black feminist sociology in connection to other women of color feminisms. Additionally, this new edition incorporates further pedagogical enhancements, such as an instructor’s appendix that includes examples that map how to use the text in the classroom, questions to consider, and links to digital resources. The book overall centers Black feminist sociology (BFS) within the sociology canon and widens it to feature Black feminist sociologists both outside the US and the academy. Inspired by a BFS lens, the chapters are critical, personal, political, and oriented toward social justice. Key themes include the origins of BFS, expositions of BFS orientations to research that extend disciplinary norms, and contradictions of the pleasures and costs of such an approach both academically and personally. Authors explore their own sociological legacy of intellectual development to raise critical questions of intellectual thought and self-reflexivity.

The book highlights the dynamism of BFS so future generations of scholars can expand upon and beyond the book’s key themes. This new edition will be an essential and valuable resource for students and instructors in introductory and intermediate courses in sociology, social theory, race and ethnic studies, Black studies, feminist and womanist studies, and cultural studies.

Zakiya Luna is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholar at Washington University in Saint Louis.

Whitney N. Laster Pirtle is an Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and Sociology at the University of California of Los Angeles.

Jasmine Kelekay is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Howard University.