How We Write Now

“Jennifer C. Nash's brilliant monograph embraces what Christina Sharpe described as ‘beauty as a method,’ through which she delivers with stunning erudition and heart-rending intimacy what it means to theorize Black life in the twenty-first century. Nash provides an essential Black feminist rejoinder to the orthodoxy of Afropessism by insisting that Black women refuse to be defined and dehumanized by Black death. Rather, their long history of cultivating beauty, intimacy, care, and affection is a fierce and rigorous practice of Black survival and enduring humanity.” - Tina M. Campt, author of A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See

“Goodness, what a book: Jennifer C. Nash has managed to create work that is both urgent and also slow, ferocious, and quiet—which is to say that she has written a book that holds the world of ordinariness. Compellingly smart and beautifully written, How We Write Now is a transcendent read and an astonishing accomplishment that builds sublimely on Nash’s singular consideration of Black feminism’s affective work.” - Kevin Quashie, author of Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being

"Nash not only examines the beauty of Black women’s feminist writing about loss but expertly demonstrates it with her loving, personal and poignant prose." - Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine

"Jennifer C. Nash presents a stimulating and personal examination of academic writing through Black feminist theory. . . . How We Write Now is a testament to the power of Black feminism." - Montez Jennings, E3W Review of Books

"I write in gratitude for the fundamental critique—and riches—that How We Write Now offers to us in the academy and beyond." - Foluke Taylor, Brief Encounters

"[The book's] ability to offer a new conceptual framework, conduct productive internal critique, and demonstrate an innovative and affectively potent mode of academic writing is its unique value. ... How We Write Now is not just a study of Black feminist theory; it is a theoretical artifact in itself—a contribution that redefines how we understand, write, and live with theory." - Reza Adeputra Tohis, Hypatia