A great deal of work has gone into controlling Black imaginations, particularly visions of eroticism and sexuality. Much of this work of repression and control has come from internal as well as external cultural forces. At the same time, the conceptual tendrils linking pleasure, desire, representation, and race have never been wilder or freer. This special issue of The Black Scholar continues the conversation begun in the impactful issue, “At the Limits of Desire: Black Radical Pleasure” (TBS 50.2) to further think through a series of questions. Questions such as: What is the limit of desire for Black people or racialized subjects? Who or what determines the limit(s), and how have such pressures changed, historically, over time? Where and how does racialized pleasure fit into the sphere of desire? How, and with what outcomes do Black people and other people of color persistently imagine and manifest representations of risky sexuality amidst such controlling pressures? What, if anything, remains sacred or off limits, to whom and/or in what contexts, and why?
Based upon the success of the “At the Limits of Desire: Black Radical Pleasure” (TBS 50.2) and the established field of Black sexuality studies the guest editors contend that it is time to push these conversations further. Furthermore, in publishing this pair of special issues the guest editors hope that minoritized communities (those on the margins of the margins) will recognize themselves in reading our contributors’ work. We seek scholarly essays/articles for peer review, but also shorter pieces which might include interviews, position papers, manifestos or reflective, personal essays that consider Black peoples’ involvement with radical sex and desire at the limits in relation to:
- Race and sexual politics/stereotypes
- Queer, Trans, intersex, and nonbinary desires
- Black feminism/womanism
- Racialized masculinities
- Pleasure, power, power exchange
- Agency, autonomy, consent
- Politics of perversion
- Transgression and abjection
- History, slavery, race play and other forms of BDSM, kink, and edgeplay
- Sexology, racial/sexual pseudo/science
- Labor, sex work, pornography, and the adult film industry
- Censuring and censorship
- Literature, music, film, popular culture, and social media
- Archives and archival work
- Erotic organizing and pleasure activism
- Black love and intimacy, Black privacy
- Futurity
- Afro-pessimism
- Religion and Philosophy
Submission guidelines can be found here. To avoid your submission being delayed or rejected, please adhere to the formatting guidelines and ensure that permissions to use third-party material are secured prior to submission.
For this issue, full-length scholarly manuscripts for peer review should range in length from 3,000-4,500 words (inclusive of endnotes and images). Literary essays, public commentary, and other similarly structured articles that are not for peer review must not exceed 5,000 words.
Articles must be in Word format and submitted to our Submission Portal. We do not accept submissions via email. To submit articles, please use the “Submit an article” tab here.
Because we strive for a public, Black/Africana Studies and interdisciplinary space of intellectual exchange, we discourage too-highly specialized or professional language and encourage open, argumentative work that is well written. Strive for an essayistic tone and target your submission to an engaged, educated, but truly interdisciplinary general audience.
All full manuscript submissions due by Nov 1, 2022. Issue is slated for publication in issue 53.4 at the end of 2023.
For questions, please email the Guest Editors at:
Kirin Wachter-Grene [kirinwg@gmail.com]
Louis Chude-Sokei [chukwu@theblackscholar.org]
