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St. Lawrence University professor publishes book on Black queer selfhood

Posted 11/2/21

CANTON — St. Lawrence University Associate Professor of English Alvin J. Henry has published a new book reinterpreting African American novels and identifying a new model of Black queer selfhood. …

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St. Lawrence University professor publishes book on Black queer selfhood

Posted

CANTON — St. Lawrence University Associate Professor of English Alvin J. Henry has published a new book reinterpreting African American novels and identifying a new model of Black queer selfhood.

"Black Queer Flesh" was published by the University of Minnesota Press, which describes it as "an original and necessary contribution to Black literary studies, offering new ways to understand and appreciate the canonical texts and far more."

According to the publisher, Henry "reinterprets key African American novels from the Harlem Renaissance to Black Modernism to contemporary literature, showing how authors have imagined a new model of Black queer selfhood" and "names 'Black queer flesh' a model of selfhood that is collective, plural, fluctuating, and deeply connected to the Black queer past."

While conducting research for the book, Henry says that African American literature provided insights into how Black queer people created daring new ways of living life, forged new cultural practices, and challenged people's contemporary ideas of what it means to craft an individual identity.