Intersectionality

In this episode of Feminist Keywords, host Amber Musser interviews Jennifer Nash, the author of the keyword 'Intersectionality.' They discuss the definition and utility of intersectionality, its global travels, and the anxiety and contestation surrounding the term. They also explore the politics of intersectionality, its relationship to Black feminist scholarship, and its misinterpretation by the right. Nash emphasizes the importance of grounding intersectionality in a critical race tradition and reclaiming it as a tool for understanding power and fostering coalition. The conversation highlights the need to challenge dominant narratives and institutions in order to create more inclusive and hospitable spaces.

Jennifer C. Nash is the Jean Fox O'Barr Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University. She is the author of The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography (Duke University Press, 2014); Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality (Duke University Press, 2018), Birthing Black Mothers (Duke University Press, 2021), and How We Write Now: Living With Black Feminist Theory (forthcoming with Duke University Press in  August 2024).

Amber Jamilla Musser is professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Sensational Flesh: Race, Power, and Masochism (2014), Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance (2018), and Between Shadows and Noise: Sensation, Situatedness, and the Undisciplined (2024). 

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• Crenshaw, Kimberlé.  “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43.6 (1991): 1241-1299.
•  Anna Julia Cooper A Voice From the South (https://librivox.org/search?title=A+Voice+from+the+South&author=Cooper&reader=&keywords=&genre_id=0&status=all&project_type=either&recorded_language=&sort_order=catalog_date&search_page=1&search_form=advanced)
• May, Vivian M. Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist. New York: Routledge, 2012:
• Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies, NYU Press, 2021. (editors: Aren Aizura, Aimee Bahng, Amber Musser, Karma Chavez, Mishuana Goeman and Kyla Wazana Tompkins). 2021
• keywords.nyupress.org