Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- I: DEFINING BLACK FEMINIST CRITICISM -- Introduction -- 1. But What Do We Think We're Doing Anyway: The State of Black Feminist Criticism(s) or My Version of a Little Bit of History (1989) -- 2. What Celie Knows That You Should Know (1990) -- 3. Fixing Methodologies: Beloved (1993) -- 4. The Race for Theory (1987) -- 5. Does Theory Play Well in the Classroom? (1996) -- II: READING BLACK WOMEN WRITERS -- Introduction -- 6. Introduction to the Hazelely Family by Mrs. A. E. Johnson (1988) -- 7. "Somebody Forgot to Tell Somebody Something": African-American Women's Historical Novels (1990) -- 8. Gloria Naylor's Geography: Communiity, Class, and Partriarchy in The Women of Brewster Place and Linden Hills (1990) -- 9. Being the Subject and the Object: Reading African-American Women's Novels (1993) -- 10. Layered Rhythms: Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison (1994) -- 11. There It Is: The Poetry of Jayne Cortez (1986) -- 12. Conversations with the Universe (1989) -- 13. Epic Achievement (1991) -- 14. A Checkered Career (1992) -- 15. Remembering Audre Lorde (1993) -- III: BLACK FEMINIST CRITICISM IN THE ACADEMY -- Introduction -- 16. Being "The Subjected Subject of Discourse" (1990) -- 17. Whose Canon Is It Anyway? (1994) -- 18. A Rough Terrain: The Case of Shaping an Anthology of Caribbean Women Writers (1995) -- 19. Diminishing Returns: Can Black Feminism(s) Survive the Academy? (1994) -- 20. Camouflaging Race and Gender (1996) -- Afterword -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography of Works by Barbara Christian -- Index.