Black Studies: Psychology

New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development by Charmaine Wijeyesinghe (Editor); Bailey W. Jackson (Editor) New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development brings together leaders in the field to deepen, broaden, and reassess our understandings of racial identity development. Contributors include the authors of some of the earliest theories in the field, such as William Cross, Bailey W. Jackson, Jean Kim, Rita Hardiman, and Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe, who offer new analysis of the impact of emerging frameworks on how racial identity is viewed and understood.

Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American Identity by William E. Cross Cross presents the diversity and texture that have always been the hallmark of Black psychology. Shades of Black explodes the myth that self-hatred is the dominant theme in Black identity. With a thorough review of social scientific literature on Negro identity conducted between 1936 and 1967, Cross demonstrates that important themes of mental health and adaptive strength have been frequently overlooked by scholars, both Black and White, obsessed with proving Black pathology. He examines the Black Power Movement and critics who credit this era with a comprehensive change in Black self-esteem.

Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics by José Esteban Muñoz José Esteban Muñoz looks at how those outside the racial and sexual mainstream negotiate majority culture--not by aligning themselves with or against exclusionary works but rather by transforming these works for their own cultural purposes. Muñoz calls this process "disidentification," and through a study of its workings, he develops a new perspective on minority performance, survival, and activism.

A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging by Dionne Brand A Map to the Door of No Return explores identity and belonging in a culturally diverse and rapidly changing world. Drawing on cartography, travels, politics and history Brand sketches the shifting borders of home and nation. The title, A Map to the Door of No Return, refers to both a place in imagination and a point in history -- the Middle Passage. The quest for identity and place has profound meaning and resonance in an age of heterogenous identities.

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen.

Speak My Name: Black Men on Masculinity and the American Dream by Don Belton (Editor, Introduction by); August Wilson (Foreword by) Including the work of Derrick Bell, Trey Ellis, Haki Madhubuti, Clarence Major, Walter Mosley, Quincy Troupe, John Edgar Wideman, and August Wilson, among others, Speak My Name explores the intimate territory behind the myths about black masculinity.

The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease by Jonathan M. Metzl Metzl uses the largely unknown story of Michigan's Ionia Mental Hospital to track the evolving definition of schizophrenia from the 1920s to the '70s, from an illness of "pastoral, feminine neurosis into one of urban, male psychosis" correlated with aggression. He offers a laudably complex look at a complex and still poorly understood condition, expanding his discussion to include the impact of deinstitutionalization and the revision of the (DSM-II) in the 1960s.

Standing in the Shadows: Understanding and Overcoming Depression in Black Men by John Head The author shares the story of his twenty-five-year struggle with depression, presenting a cultural analysis of how mental illness is perceived and perpetuated within African American communities.

Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting : Real Talk for When There's Nowhere to Go but Up by Terrie M. Williams This book identifies emotional pain--uniquely and profoundly affecting the Black experience--as the root of lashing out through desperate acts.

The Long Road from Slavery to Mental Illness: White Fear + Racist + Racism + White Supremacy = Black Mental Illness by Calvin Vernon Thomas In "The Long Road from Slavery to Mental Illness", Calvin Thomas examines every aspect of Black life—from media images of Blacks, to civil rights legislation, including the issue of reparations. He describes in great detail how all aspects of White society work towards increasing the sense of disconnection every Black person feels from the society around him, and the distance between his image of himself and White images of him.

Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism. Desiring to create a context where black females could both work on their individual efforts for self-actualization while remaining connected to a larger world of collective struggle, hooks articulates the link between self-recovery and political resistance.