Preface  ix
Acknowledgments  xiii
Introduction. Introducing Maât  1
Part I. quare-womanist-vidicationist movement
1. A Prolegomenon to Justice Hermeneutics and Black Sexual Ethics  17
2. Naming (and Transforming) Justice: (Re)Imagining Black Sexual Ethics  35
Part II. justices
3. Flying Justice: Sun Ra’s Sexuality and Other Afrofutures  71
4. Heterexpectations: Jumping the Broom, Marriage, Democracy, and Entanglement Theory  101
5. Dancing Justice: Just Black HomoSexualities  137
6. Ancient Mixologies: Joel Augustus Rogers and Puzzling Interracial Intimacies  167
7. Black Web: Disrupting Transnational Pornographies for Post(trans)national Humanalities  205
Conclusion. Re-covering Maât  245
Notes  255
Bibliography  293
Index  313
 

In Black, Quare, and Then to Where jennifer susanne leath explores the relationship between Afrodiasporic theories of justice and Black sexual ethics through a womanist engagement with Maât the ancient Egyptian deity of justice and truth. Maât took into account the historical and cultural context of each human's life, thus encompassing nuances of politics, race, gender, and sexuality. Arguing that Maât should serve as a foundation for reconfiguring Black sexual ethics, leath applies ancient Egyptian moral codes to quare ethics of the erotic, expanding what relationships and democratic practices might look like from a contemporary Maâtian perspective. She also draws on Pan-Africanism and examines the work of Alice Walker, E. Patrick Johnson, Cheikh Anta Diop, Sylvia Wynter, Sun Ra, and others. She shows that together these thinkers and traditions inform and expand the possibilities of Maâtian justice with respect to Black sexual experiences. As a moral force, leath contends, Maât opens new possibilities for mapping ethical frameworks to understand, redefine, and imagine justices in the United States.