"This volume tracks and uncovers the Black body as a persistent presence and absence in American literature. It provides an invaluable guide for teachers and students interested in literary representations of Blackness and embodiment. It centers Black thinking about Black embodiment from current, diverse, and intersectional perspectives"--

List of Figures; List of Contributors; Acknowledgments; Celestial Bodies: An Introduction Cherene Sherrard Johnson; Part I. Extraction and Abstraction: 1. Theorizing black bodies Sam Plasencia; 2. The black body and the medical archive Julius B. Fleming; 3. Laboring bodies Crystal S. Donkor; 4. Animalia Americana Joshua Bennett; 5. Black ecological insurgencies J. T. Roane; 6. The black body in nature Anissa Wardi; Part II. Black Optics: Invisibility and Hypervisibility: 7. Synesthetic embodiment Yanie Fecu; 8. Dancing bodies Rachel Farebrother; 9. Celebrity bodies Samantha Pinto; 10. Embodied black aliveness Lisa Woolfork; 11. Staging racial passing Kyle Frisina; 12. Passing bodies Lisa Mendelman and Octavio R. Gonzalez; Part III. Quare Bodies: 13. Body of knowledge: Audre Lorde's Zami Alexandria Smith; 14. The Black body, violence, and religion Ahmad Greene Hayes; 15. Black Cripistemologies Anna Laquawn Hinton; 16. Black erotic bodies Julian Kevon Glover; Notes; Bibliography; Index.