Book Chapter

Reading Maya Angelou, Reading Black Internationalist Feminism Today

CHERYL HIGASHIDA

2011

Overview

In reflecting on the relevance of African American women writers of the postwar anticolonial Left today, it is useful to look closely at the work of Maya Angelou. Not only has she attained the most mainstream visibility and commercial success of all the women affiliated with the African American Left, but her Black internationalist feminist autobiography, The Heart of a Woman (1981), has become part of U.S. mass culture. Although this attests to the co-optation of radicalism, Angelou’s autobiographical series (composed of five other volumes) should also be examined as a site of contestation over national identity, race, and the

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Subject: African American culture / African American studies / African Americans / American minorities / American studies / Anthropology / anticolonial Black Left / Bandung era / Behavioral sciences / Black communities / Black feminism / Black women / Civil rights movements / Communities / Ethnic groups / Ethnography / Ethnology / Feminism / Gay rights movements / Gender studies / Group identity / Human populations / Human rights movements / Human societies / Internationalism / Liberalism / Literary Studies (Women's Writing) / Maya Angelou / National identity / Nationalism / Persons / Political ideologies / Political movements / Political philosophy / Political science / Political sociology / Population studies / Psychology / Radicalism / revolutionary politics / Social groups / Social movements / Social psychology / Social sciences / Sociology / Women
• ISBN: 9780252036507, 0252036506