A Self-Made Woman, A Woman’s Rights: A Trans Theoretical Reading of the Sojourner Truth Archive

• In Event: Trans Archives and Alternate Genealogies

Abstract

A resilient symbol of Black/feminist resistance, Sojourner Truth (and particularly her 1851 speech in Akron, Ohio) has been a touchstone of feminist theorizing for multiple generations. Drawing from recent developments in trans histories and historiographies, this paper reads Sojourner Truth’s archive in conversation with several trans theorists. Reorienting ongoing feminist debates about Truth and her legacy, I look to trans studies for tools with which to read and honor Truth as a complex, self-fashioned, gendered historical figure and as a Black feminist symbol that has been produced and reproduced through the shaping and reshaping of her archive.

Presenter

• Sam King-Shaw, Global Gender and Sexuality Studies University at Buffalo SUNY