Epistolary Autoethnographies on Loss, Memory and Resolution : Reflections on Black Motherhood

This book uses letter writing as a form of engaging autoethnography to address relational histories and dynamics such as race, gender, loss, memory and resolution.

It is structured around textual performances, poems, and dialogues in the form of letters. Set within the context of adult Black children and their Black mothers, each author uses their letters to reflect on life with and without mama, and their own sense of coming to know themselves in the absence of their mother. Each entry evidence encounters of pain, possibility, and potentiality collated between the authors for a robust thematic underpinning for the reader. Building upon poetic inquiry and autoethnography narratives, this book seeks to build arguments about privatized struggle, and offers a guide on reflection.

In addition to students and researchers partaking in autoethnographical studies, this book is suitable for anyone studying qualitative inquiry, performance studies, gender studies, cultural studies, Black studies, anthropology, and performative writing.

Bryant Keith Alexander is a professor and dean in the College of Communication and Fine Arts at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angles, CA. He is coauthor of Still Hanging: Using Performance Texts to Deconstrict Racism and Collaborative Spirit-Writing and Performance in Everyday Black Lives.

Mary E. Weems is a poet, playwright, scholar, and author of 14 books, including Blackeyed: Plays and Monologues and five chapbooks. Weems was awarded a 2015 Cleveland Arts Prize for her full-length drama MEAT and has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is coauthor with Alexander of Still Hanging: Using Performance Texts to Deconstruct Racism and Collaborative Spirit-Writing and Performance in Everyday Black Lives. Weems may be reached at www.maryeweems.org.