Salamishah Tillet’s Sites of Slavery examines the ways in which post-Civil Rights African American
writers and artists return “to the site of slavery” (Tillet 2) in order to grapple with the ongoing
exclusion of African Americans from full citizenship and to pose racial futures. Tillet analyzes
diverse texts, ranging from legal documents to plays and films. All share what she calls a “democratic
aesthetic,” the strategic use of postmodernist approaches and metafiction in particular to narrate or
visualize the paradox of African American citizenship. Further, Tillet argues that as part of a
democratic aesthetic these writers and artists deploy what she terms “critical patriotism,” an
orientation toward American citizenship born of “dissent, criticality, and inclusion”(12). Ultimately,
this posture enables them to move black women from the outskirts to the center of American citizen.
The full review can be downloaded here -> Sites of Slavery Review_Kaneesha Parsard