The Motherhood Aesthetic in Contemporary Black American Plays

La Tanya L. Reese Rogers; Tanya E. Walker

doi:10.21900/pww.29

The Motherhood Aesthetic in Contemporary Black American Plays

Authors

La Tanya L. Reese Rogers

Tanya E. Walker

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21900/pww.29

Keywords:

motherhood, Dramatic Aesthetic, Black Women, contemporary plays

Synopsis

…The Motherhood Aesthetic in Contemporary Black American Plays challenges and expands existing denotations and representations of Black Motherhood, as it provides an interdisciplinary aesthetic/theoretical framework through which to realistically re-present and, with cultural empathy, interpret the complexities of Black Motherhood, Black mother’s love, and Black women’s maternal herstories….This work compels the reader to reconsider their own perceptions and misperceptions of motherhood.”

Ladrica C. Menson-Furr, University of Memphis

This collection introduces the "Black female Motherhood Aesthetic," a theory revealing the complexities of Black motherhood in contemporary America. Through an interpretation of plays written by Black female playwrights Suzan-Lori Parks, Cheryl West, Aishah Rahman, Dael Orlandersmith, and Velina Hasu Houston, the authors define the aesthetic to showcase the full humanity of Black women, exploring Black women's self-determination, trauma, bravery, and joy.

These playwrights engage in "response writing," allowing their characters to address their lived experiences. Issues like skin-color marginalization, intersectional identity, and family dislocation are reexamined. This aesthetic challenges past portrayals of the idealized Black family, presenting diverse and realistic representations of motherhood. It affirms that Black families are not homogenous, but multifaceted, reflecting the varied realities of Black women's lives.

This title was peer reviewed with a single-blind process by the AFRO-PWW editorial board.

Please cite this book using the DOI: 10.21900/pww.29.

Chapters

Abstract
Acknowledgments
1. The Intentional Act of Changemaking
2. Black Feminist Rhetoric on Motherhood
3. Defining the Black Female Motherhood Aesthetic
4. Toward Refiguring Hester in Suzan-Lori Parks' In the Blood
5. Surviving Generational Trauma in Dael Orlandersmith's Monster
6. Countering Presentations of the Happy, Upwardly Mobile, Black Family in Cheryl West's Before it Hits Home
7. Motherhood, Magical Realism, and the Jazz Aesthetic in Aishah Rahman's The Mojo and the Sayso
8. Age-Associated Power Dynamics in Velina Hasu Houston's Alabama Rain
9. Conclusion
Appendix: Interview with Velina Hasu Houston, MFA, PhD
Bibliography
About the Authors

Author Biographies

La Tanya L. Reese Rogers

La Tanya L. (Reese) Rogers, PhD is Interim Dean of the School of Humanities & Behavioral Social Sciences at Fisk University, where she is Associate Professor of Literature & Drama and Associate Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Honors Program. She holds degrees from Howard University and Washington University in St. Louis.

Her research advances Black theatre, global literature, identity construction, and Honors pedagogy, with her publications featured in the Black Theatre Review, CEA Mid-Atlantic Review, Honors in Practice, Interdisciplinary Humanities, and Pictures and Mirrors: Race and Ethnicity in Brazil and the United States. Dr. Rogers, a dramatic theorist, is currently writing a digital monograph on Black-women-directed plays since 1925 at Fisk.

Dr. Rogers serves as vice president of the National Association of African American Honors Programs (NAAAHP), past president of the College English Association Mid-Atlantic Group (CEA-MAG), and past vice president of the Black Theatre Network (BTN).

Tanya E. Walker

Tanya E. Walker, PhD, the department chair and associate professor of African American Literature at Winston-Salem State University, specializes in Black women writers whose works affirm Black resilience and engage topics on gender, sexuality, and body politics. Her first book, Margins of the Literary Imagination: A Black Speculative Reader, was published in 2018. She holds degrees from Howard University, North Carolina A&T State University, and Bennett College.

Currently, Dr. Walker is working on a digital project focusing on understudied women writers during the New Negro Renaissance. Her recent scholarship appears in Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance, Intercultural Communication for Global Engagement, and International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Dr. Walker serves on the executive board for the Digital Humanities Collective of North Carolina. She also served on the International Black Theater Festival Colloquium Task Force and as Councilor for the Council on Undergraduate Research, Arts and Humanities Division.