“And How Did That Make You Feel?”: Tracing Emotional Discontents in Black Lesbian Anthologies and Exploring Their Use as Affective Tools for Liberation

In the mid-to-late 20th century, there was a boom of Black lesbian and feminist literature including poetry, essays, and anthologies that offered trailblazing perspectives on race, gender, and sexuality, subsequently birthing useful analytical frameworks to discuss social phenomena such as identity politics and intersectionality. Focusing on Afrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writing and Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought, I assess these texts for their affective elements to consider how emotions contribute to the political development of Black lesbians. I found isolation, rage, and desire to be the most prominent affects in the texts for how they encouraged community building, produced knowledge, and developed sexual and political agency for Black lesbians. I contend that emotions and the actions they encourage are underutilized affective tools in liberatory movements, and that a critical undertaking of isolation, rage, and desire can provide insightful knowledge to address and disempower oppressive systems of domination.