Abstract
Our joint paper examines underrecognized and underappreciated methods in Black feminist history. We explore the research methods of Black women’s history and Black queer history to mark their particular and shared investigative modes. By asserting that historical methods are a technique or set of procedures that scholars use to analyze primary sources, we challenge the common equivalence of “sources” with “methods.” We index four practices—historical imagination, inference, suspicion, and witnessing—as foundational and important research methods of Black feminist history. This paper contributes to ongoing discussions about the particularity of historical methods and the relationship between Black feminist thought and Black queer inquiry. We reviewed classic texts in Black women’s history and Black queer history, examined newer and less cited literature in these fields, and engaged methodological and philosophical meditations on the field of history. In this way, secondary sources served as our primary sources and our method involved placing these disparate pieces of writing, from as early as 1946 to as recent as 2023, in meaningful conversation about historical research approaches. By articulating these Black feminist methods, we seek to center historical methods as an essential and generative set of tools for humanists to rigorously engage with archival source material often marked by silence, elisions, and violence. By turning our attention to Black feminist historical methods, we challenge the marginalization of historical inquiry within Black feminist studies writ large.
Presenters
Ava PurkissAssistant Professor, Women's and Gender Studies and American Culture, University of Michigan, Michigan, United States Jennifer Dominique Jones
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, HISTORY AND WOMEN'S AND GENDER STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Michigan, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Methods, Black Feminism, History, Queer Studies, Black Women's History
