by Jeffrey Littenberg
The Boston College Sociology Department had the honor of hosting Professor Patricia Hill Collins from February 18-20th, 2002, as part of our annual Visiting Scholar Series. Patricia Hill Collins is Chair and Charles Phelps Taft Professor of Sociology within the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Hill Collins is most famous for her development of a black women's standpoint epistemology. She has published articles in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Signs, Sociological Theory, Social Problems, and Black Scholar. Her first book, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, won the Jessie Bernard Award of the American Sociological Association and the C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. She also co-edited Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology (with Margaret Andersen), and Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice. She is currently working on her fourth book, Black Sexual Politics, to be published by Routledge in 2003.
On the evening of February 18th, Patricia Hill Collins gave a public lecture on the future of feminist thought. At the start of this lecture, Collins reiterated a central theme of her work-the utility of thinking about complex social issues from a particular standpoint-for Collins, this is the standpoint of women of African descent. By orienting research toward a particular standpoint, it is possible to develop empirically grounded knowledge claims that are socially situated, rather than relying on the assumption of an Archimedean worldview for pretension to scientific authority.
Collins proceeded to draw connections between the popular representation of women of color, as embodied in Jennifer Lopez, and early modern representations of African women, as embodied in Saartje Baartman-the "Bantu" woman who was taken to Europe in the late Eighteenth century as an example of "primitive" sexuality. Both women were presented as hyper-sexualized objects, with "abnormally large erogenous zones" (especially the posterior). Both women were consumed as objects of the white, usually male, gaze. Thus women of color, and especially iconic representatives to the mainstream, become vessels upon which to project modern Western fantasies of untamed sexuality and, unwittingly, perform the task of justifying colonial-racist practices in the minds of these men (and some women). Collins argued that although women of color continue to be represented as hyper-sexualized icons consumed for the pleasure of the powerful, contemporary women of color have more control over their presentation of an "exotic" sexuality that they are often able to manipulate to their advantages. Examples of such women range from the 1920's singer/actress Josephine Baker, to the contemporary female group Destiny's Child. The increased potential for agency in regard to their reputation, on the part of women of color, is the product of centuries of collective struggle on the part of people of color (especially women).
Men of African descent are also imbued with modern Western fantasies of unbridled sexually. But in the case of men, this sexuality represents a threat that, Collins argued, forms the basis for the legacy of lynching and criminalization. Collins was quick to point out that men of color, especially African American men, have been able to appropriate the image of threatening hyper-sexuality in such cultural forms as hip-hop (and earlier street-cultures). Collins went on to juxtapose sexuality (in the sense of bodily knowledge) with the isolating effects of oppression. Other topics included anti-racist politics as well as the relationship between cultural production and individual/collective subjectivities.
Collins also led two seminars, one on each of the two days following her lecture. The first of these seminars focused on 'prison consciousness,' both literally, in the effect of an expanding and increasingly racialized prison-industrial complex, and as a metaphor for the confinement of individual subjectivities through their location in relation to structural forces. Issues addressed include the role of unconditional love in healing the wounds of oppression, the need to take back the language of family from conservative ideologues, and the (further) development of "agency laden institutions" as spaces of healing, reflection, and resistance.
The second seminar centered on the development of a new black praxis that incorporates anti-oppressive theories addressing the complexities of intersectional locations while simultaneously pointing to effective strategies of resistance and motivating people of all races to work against systems of racial, sexual, and class oppression. Collins encouraged an animated and productive discussion by calling on seminar participants to devise a strategy for bringing into affect such a manner of praxis. At the end of this seminar Collins encouraged participants to continue working toward theories that can inform collective resistance to oppression. Since her visit to Boston College, those who experienced the brilliance of Patricia Hill Collins have taken her appeal to heart.