Bodies and Bones - (New World Studies) by Tanya L Shields (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

In Bodies and Bones, Tanya Shields argues that a repeated engagement with the Caribbean's iconic and historic touchstones offers a new sense of (inter)national belonging that brings an alternative and dynamic vision to the gendered legacy of brutality against black bodies, flesh, and bone. Using a distinctive methodology she calls "feminist rehearsal" to chart the Caribbean's multiple and contradictory accounts of historical events, the author highlights the gendered and emergent connections between art, history, and belonging.

By drawing on a significant range of genres--novels, short stories, poetry, plays, public statuary, and painting--Shields proposes innovative interpretations of the work of Grace Nichols, Pauline Melville, Fred D'Aguiar, Alejo Carpentier, Edwidge Danticat, Aimé Césaire, Marie-Hélène Cauvin, and Rose Marie Desruisseau. She shows how empathetic alliances can challenge both hierarchical institutions and regressive nationalisms and facilitate more democratic interaction.

Review Quotes

Bodies and Bones will greatly impact Caribbean scholarship on gender, race, and representation, particularly with regard to how one talks about intersectionality in a Caribbean context. Not only is Shields successful in proving her arguments; she also offers up a new theoretical paradigm for reading Caribbean texts while sifting through an exhaustive amount of history.

Tanya Shields brings into striking juxtaposition a variety of visual and textual examples to examine the intersections between gender, the body, and citizenship.

About the Author

Tanya L. Shields is Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.