Description:
Ruminating on the significance of physical and mental roaming in relation to black freedom, Sarah Jane Cervenak emphasizes the power of wandering and daydreaming for those whose mobility is severely constrained. From Sojourner Truth's spiritual and physical journeys to the rambling protagonist of Gayl Jones's novel Mosquito, Cervenak highlights modes of wandering that subvert Enlightenment-based protocols of rationality, composure, and upstanding comportment.
Review Quotes: "Cervenak's Wandering questions the very essence of wandering instead of simply adding a new magnitude to it." --Miha, Bookslut
"'Wandering, ' in Sarah Jane Cervenak's ambitious new book, is both an invitation and a warning.... Read alongside three contemporary performance and visual artists whom Cervenak considers in the conclusion, all of these philosophers offer models to exist, dream, imagine, move, and live in a world intent on constraining and restraining black freedom in all its varied forms."--Alice Pederson, Journal of American History "This concise and insightful book was written from the perspective of performance studies, but as an interdisciplinary exercise it has much to offer historians who confront absence and contradictions in their research on slavery and race.... Cervenak strikes an effective balance as she lucidly examines black authors' work even as she honors what they do not say or show as an act of resistance."--Rachel Hooper, Journal of Southern History "[I]t became increasingly clear that even if Cervenak's text does not have musical references as works cited, this does not mean that the text does not swing, as sponsored by a summer breeze. Therefore, fully aware of the forthcoming holiday season, perhaps what the text encourages you, its muse, to do, albeit (a)religiously, is to wonder as you wander . . ."--I. Augustus Durham, New Black Man (in Exile) "A valuable contribution to studies of mobility, Wandering is particularly well-suited for readers interested in black feminist theory, philosophy, performance studies, and intellectual history." --Michael Ra-shon Hall, Transfers "Cervenak's scholarship is an important contribution to performance theory in its unwavering focus on the idea that mental, spiritual, and kinesthetic wandering for black bodies are resistant acts, which, visible or invisible, prove dangerous and pleasurable in complex ways, yet always propel black bodies toward freedom."--Kristyl Dawn Tift, Theatre Journal "Cervenak's attention to that which can neither be known nor discredited but is perhaps implied and discerned--the meandering, otherworldly thoughts of freedom produced by black subjects--is intriguing and important."--Jennifer DeVere Brody, Signs "Intellectually ambitious and beautifully written, Sarah Jane Cervenak's Wandering is a timely contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship on the opaque powers of Black expressive culture."--Erin Gray, GLQ