Conjure Feminism: Tracing the Genealogy of Black Women’s Intellectual Tradition

The Lemonade Reader  (June 2019)

Envisioning Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics (Lexington 2016)

Conjuring Moments in African American Literature (Palgrave 2012)


Scholarly Essays:

“Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics, Conjure Feminism, and the Arts.” In the Black Fantastic. Edited by Ekow Eshun. London, UK: Thames & Hudson, 2022. 138-144.

“’A Consort of the Spirits’ or How to Cultivate Indigo, Conjured by Herself.” The Langston Hughes Review, Vol 28, No.1, 2022: 1-9.

Brooks, Kinitra and Kameelah Martin. “’I Used to be Your Sweet Mama’: Beyoncé at the Crossroads of Blues and Conjure in Lemonade.” The Lemonade Reader.  Edited by Kinitra D. Brooks and Kameelah Martin. Routledge Press, 2019. pp. 202-214.

—. “Trans-disciplinary Orientations: Theory, Methodology, and Literature of the African Diaspora.” Africana Methodology: A Social Study of Research Triangulation and Metatheory on Africana Phenomenon. Edited by James L. Conyers, Jr. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018. pp. 121-142.

—. “’What you Really Know ‘bout the Dirrrty South?’: Black Women & Spirit Work in the Southern Imagination.” Introduction to Graphic Novel Box of Bones: The Trouble I’ve Seen. Ayize Jama Everette and John Jennings. Greenbelt, MD: Rosarium Publishing, 2018.

—. “Womanism.” American Literature in Transition, 1980-1990. Quentin Miller, Editor.  Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2017. 42-53. Preview of Anthology

—.   “Conjuring Up an Image: The African American Healing Woman in the Films of Julie Dash & Kasi Lemmons.” Race, Gender, & Identity: A Social Science Comparative Analysis of Africana Culture. Africana Studies Vol. 5. (Sept 2013):7-18.    Full text

—. “Caroline’s Nightmare: The Skeleton Key as Visual Echo of Charles Chesnutt’s Conjure Tales.” College Language Association Journal 56.4 (June 2013): 298-313. Full text

—. “Hoodoo Ladies and High Conjurers: New Directions for an Old Archetype.” Literary Expressions of African Spirituality.  Eds. Elizabeth West and Carol Marsh-Lockett. Lanham, MD. Lexington Press, 2013:119-144. Full text

—. “Rethinking Ishmael Reed: Neo-Hoodoo Womanist Text?” On the Aesthetic Legacy of Ishmael Reed: Contemporary Reassessments. Eds. Paul Kareem Tayyar and Sämi Ludwig. Huntington Beach, CA: World Parade Books, 2013: 108-128. (reprint)

—. “Disney’s Tia Dalma: A Critical Interrogation of the ‘Imagineered’ Priestess.” Black Women, Gender, and Families. Vol. 6, no. 1(Spring 2012):97-122. Full text

—. “Charles W. Chesnutt and the Legacy of The Conjure Woman.” Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Placing A Stamp on America. Ed. Mary B. Zeigler. Spec. issue of Studies in the Literary Imagination. 43.2 (Fall 2010): 15-30. Full text

—. “Rethinking Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo: Neo-Hoodoo Womanist Text?” College Language Association Journal 52.2 (Dec. 2008) 111-131. Full text

—. “Introduction to the Special Issue.” Serving the Spirits: Women and Voodoo in Literature and Popular Culture.  Kim Wells and Kameelah Martin Samuel, Eds. Spec. issue of Women Writers: A Zine. (Aug. 2008). 

—. “Women and Voodoo: A Conversation with Jewell Parker Rhodes.” Serving the Spirits: Women and Voodoo in Literature and Popular Culture. Eds. Kim Wells and Kameelah Martin Samuel. Spec. issue of Women Writers: A Zine. (Aug. 2008).

—. “Ansa, Tina McElroy.” African American National Biography. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2008. 50-51.

—. “Nunez, Elizabeth.” African American National Biography. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2008. 172-173.

—. “Hip Hop Soap Box: Pullin’ the Race Card in Mos Def’s ‘Mr. Nigga’.” Revolutions of the Mind: Cultural Studies in the African Diaspora Project. Edited by Dionne Bennett and Candace Moore.  Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles CAAS Publications, 2003: 111-115.


Editorial Work:

“Religion and Spirituality: Transportations and Transformations of Spirituality and Identity in the New World.” Section Co-Editor with Elizabeth J. West. The Routledge Anthology of African American Rhetoric:The Longue Duree of Black Voices. Vershawn Young, Michelle Bachelor Robinson, and Carmen Kynard, General Editors. NY: Routledge, 2018.  Preview of Anthology

“Sankofa, or ‘Go Back and Fetch It’: Merging Genealogy and Africana Studies: An Introduction.” Guest Editor with Elizabeth J. West. Special Issue of Genealogy 2018:2. (Open Access Journal).  http://www.mdpi.com/journal/genealogy/special_issues/Africana_Studies

Guest Editor with Donald Shaffer, Jr. Black Transnationalism and the Discourse(s) of Cultural Hybridity Special Issue of South Atlantic Review 84.2 (Dec. 2017).Full text

Book Reviews:

Review of Moses, Jesus, and the Trickster in the Evangelical South by Paul Harvey. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012. South Atlantic Review 79.3-4 (Nov 2015):208-11.

Review of Water and African American Memory: An Ecocritical Perspective by Anissa Janine Wardi. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011. The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies. Vol. 34.1 (Spring 2015): 71-72.

Review of Tipping on a Tightrope: Divas in African American Literature by Aisha Damali Lockridge. NY: Peter Lang, 2012.  College Language Association Journal.  Vol. 55 Issue 4 (June 2012):392-396.

Review of Soul Thieves: The Appropriation and Misrepresentation of African American Popular Culture. Tamara Lizette Brown and Baruti N. Kopano, eds. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.  The Journal of American  History. (2015): 945-46.