Bodies in the Middle

A probing analysis of Black women's attempts to pursue justice for sexual-violence victims within often hostile social and legal systems

In Bodies in the Middle: Black Women, Sexual Violence, and Complex Imaginings of Justice, Maya Hislop examines the lack of place that Black women experience, specifically when they are victims of sexual violence. Hislop uses both historical and literary analyses to explore how women, in the face of indifference and often hostility, have sought to redefine justice for themselves within a framework she calls "Afro-pessimistic justice." Afro-pessimism begins from the belief that Black life in America, and in turn the American justice system, is constrained within a framework of anti-Blackness meant to enforce white supremacy. Inspired by the work of Black-studies luminaries such as Orlando Patterson, Sylvia Wynter, and Fred Moten, Hislop asks what justice can look like in the absence of total victory and how Black women have attempted to define alternative paths to a just future.