Sojourner Truth and Intersectionality: Traveling Truths in Feminist Scholarship

by Katrine Smiet

Overview

Sojourner Truth and Intersectionality investigates how the story of the 19th-century abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth has come to be an iconic feminist story, and explores the continued relevance of this story for contemporary feminist debates in general, and intersectionality scholarship in particular.

Tracing various academic reception histories of the story of Sojourner Truth and the famous "Ain’t I a Woman?" speech, the book gives insight into how this story has been taken up by feminist scholars in different times, places, and political contexts. Exploring in particular how and why the story of Sojourner Truth has become a key reference for the theoretical and political framework of intersectionality, the book examines what the consequences of this connection are both for how intersectionality is understood today, and how the story of Sojourner Truth is approached. The book examines key intersecting dimensions within the story of Truth and its reception, including gender, race, class and religion.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars in gender, women’s and feminist studies. In particular, the book will be of interest to those wishing to learn more about intersectionality and Sojourner Truth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367694630
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/01/2022
Series:	Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality
Pages:	164
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Katrine Smiet is Assistant Professor of Gender and Diversity Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Her research interests include feminist philosophy, historiography of feminist ideas, and intersectionality.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Travels with Truth 1

1 Beyond the Historical Truth?: Feminist knowledges as traveling truths 14

2 Intersectionality as Traveling Theory: European intersectionality debates 45

3 Ain't I a Woman?: Feminist theory and the unstable subject of "woman" 69

4 Post/secular Truths: Sojourner Truth at the intersection of gender, race, and religion 88

5 Post/socialist Truths: Thinking through Sojourner Truth and Alexandra Kollontai 112

Conclusion: A personal and academic travelogue 145

Index 154