Morris sees these women’s cultural productions as part of an epistemology she describes as Afrofuturist feminism. Afrofuturist feminism is a way of knowing and moving through the world that is a strategy for naming and navigating complicated and often vexed histories and visions of the future, one that places people of color at the center and is interested in transgressing conventional systems of power and dominance. Looking at the work of the aforementioned artists and writers, Morris pays pays particular attention to Black women’s engagement of Afrofuturist feminism in mapping out spaces for vivid and robust expressions of Black women’s sexuality and intimacy.

Susana M. Morris,  an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Auburn, received her Ph.D. from Emory University and her B.A. from Mount Holyoke. A specialist in contemporary African American and African Caribbean literature, she researches the politics of family and intimacy, gender and feminist theory, and black sexualities. Her book, Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature, was recently published be the University of Virginia Press. She has also published articles in The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, South Atlantic Quarterly,and Women’s Studies Quarterly. She is also a founding member and contributing writer for the popular feminist blog, The Crunk Feminist Collective.