BOOK NEWS: Human monstrosity in Black horror fiction

 Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction 

BY JERRY RAFIKI JENKINS

Ohio State UP, 2024

ISBN: 978-0-8142-5905-4

https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215364.html

In Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction, Jerry RafikiJenkins examines four types of human monsters that frequently appear in Black American horror fiction—the monsters of White rage, respectability, not-ness, and serial killing—arguing that such monsters represent specific ideologies of American anti-Blackness. Jenkins examines a variety of these monstrous forms in Tananarive Due’s The Between, Victor LaValle’s The Changeling, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death, and many other works. While these monsters and the texts that they populate ask us to think about the role that anti-Blackness plays in being or becoming American, they also offer intellectual resources that Black and non-Black people might use to combat the everyday versions of human monstrosity.

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“Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction is a necessary work that emphasizes the sanity and rationality of monstrous figures. Jenkins persuasively contends that combining Afropessimism and affirmation of Black life in fiction can provide resistance to the deadliness of the racial reality of anti-Blackness.” —Keith Byerman, author of Remembering the Past in Contemporary African American Fiction

“Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction is sharp and intellectually daring. Jenkins’s treatment of violence and prospects of Black counter-violence make it a timely resource for Black studies scholars and social and cultural critics of all kinds.” —Greg Thomas, author of Hip-Hop Revolution in the Flesh: Power, Knowledge, and Pleasure in Lil’ Kim’s Lyricism

Jerry Rafiki Jenkins is a professor in the Departments of English and Humanities, and Multicultural Studies at Palomar College and the author of The Paradox of Blackness in African American Vampire Fiction.