Death and Desire: Re-imagining the Strong Black Women

• In Event: Black Women, Survival and Love

Abstract

Many scholars have critically evaluated the impacts of the strong black woman trope, including its potential for empowerment, yet its toxicity. These include imaginaries of black Amazon women who are spiritual, confident, brilliant, and magical. In "A Time Before the Men Came: The Past as Prologue,” playwright Pearl Cleage offers one influential model. Cleage presents Amazon women as majestic and serious. The movie, The Woman King, offers recent iterations of strong black women as warriors and royalty. Cleage's prose and the movie introduce imaginaries of Amazon women that overlap and diverge in their portrayals of the strength of black women.

Presenter

• Sharon Saffold-Harris, Department of Gender and Women's Studies, University of Arizona