A study of how black subjectivity is formed at the site of the intimate encounter.

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. Making Monstrous Intimacies: Surviving Slavery, Bearing Freedom 1
1. Gayl Jones's Corregidora and Reading the "Days That Were Pages of Hysteria" 27
2. Bessie Head, Saartje Baartman, and Maru Redemption, Subjectification, and the Problem of Liberation 67
3. Isaac Julien's The Attendant and the Sadomasochism of Everyday Black Life 111
4. Kara Walker's Monstrous Intimacies 153
Notes 189
Bibliography 223
Index 243