Joy James facts for kids

Joy James (born 1958) is an American professor, writer, and thinker. She teaches about important ideas like politics, Black history, and how society works. Joy James is currently the Ebenezer Fitch Professor of the Humanities at Williams College.

She has written many books, including Transcending the Talented Tenth, Shadowboxing, Imprisoned Intellectuals, and The New Abolitionists. Her work often explores how people can fight for fairness and freedom. She also helped create the Harriet Tubman Digital Repository at The University of Texas at Austin.

Joy James's Career Journey

Joy James has worked with many important thinkers and at several universities.

Working with Angela Davis

After finishing her studies, Joy James worked with Angela Davis at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Angela Davis is a famous activist and writer. Joy James edited a book called The Angela Y. Davis Reader. This book focused on Angela Davis's ideas about freedom and how people can work together for a better society.

Teaching and Research Roles

Joy James has taught at several universities across the United States.

• From 1990 to 1996, she was a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
• From 1997 to 2000, she was an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. There, she also led the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.
• She was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in 1999-2000.
• From 2000 to 2005, she was a professor at Brown University.
• In 2005, she joined the faculty at Williams College, where she teaches today.

Key Books and Ideas

Joy James has written several influential books that share her ideas on social justice.

Shadowboxing and Resisting State Violence

In 1991, Joy James wrote Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics. This book looked at how Black women have shown strength and intelligence in different political situations. It combined ideas about social movements with culture and politics.

Her second book, Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. Culture, came out in 1996. It explored how people have resisted unfair government actions, focusing on issues of race and gender in America.

Fighting for Abolitionism

Joy James has worked with other Black feminist scholars to create groups like the Black Internationalists Unions. These groups aim to fight racism against Black people. They support a modern form of abolitionism, which means working to end systems that harm people, like prisons.

Seeking the Beloved Community

In 2013, she released Seeking the Beloved Community: A Feminist Race Reader. This book includes essays written over twenty years. It talks about the challenges faced by writers, scholars, and activists who fight against racism and sexism.

In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love

Her book In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love: Precarity, Power, Communities explores the idea of love within different communities. It discusses how love can be a powerful force for change.

New Bones Abolition

In 2023, New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the Afterlife of Erica Garner was published. This book looks at the story of Erica Garner, whose father, Eric Garner, died in a widely publicized incident. The book explores how people can organize and take risks to fight for freedom. It introduces the idea of the "captive maternal," which refers to strong mother figures or those who act like mothers, who fight for justice even when they are held back. Examples include Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, and Erica Garner.

Works

• James, Joy. In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love: Precarity, Power, Communities. Divided Publishing December 2022. ISBN: 978-1-7398431-0-6
• James, Joy. "Airbrushing Revolution for the Sake of Abolition." Black Perspective. July 20, 2020.
• James, Joy. "Presidential Powers and Captive Maternals: Sally, Michelle, and Deborah." APABlog, May 6, 2020.
• James, Joy. "Killmonger's Captive Maternal Is M.I.A: Black Panther's Family Drama, Imperial Masters and Portraits of Freedom" in Reading Wakanda: Black Radical Imaginations with Hollywood Fantasies. Southern California Library. May 1, 2019.
• James. Joy. "DO SOMETHING ETHICAL: Critical Thinking, Theorizing, and Political Will,"pp. 183–193. George Yancy, editor, Educating for critical consciousness. New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 2019.
• James, Joy. The Womb of Western theory: trauma, time theft, and the captive maternal. Carceral Notebooks. Challenging the punitive society. v12, 2016.
• James, Joy, Silvia Federici, Kelly Fritsch, Clare O'Connor, and A K. Thompson. Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle. Edinburgh: AK Press, 2016.
• James, Joy. Seeking the Beloved Community: A Feminist Race Reader. : State University of New York Press, 2014, ISBN: 978-1-4-3844632-5.
• James, Joy. Warfare in the American homeland: policing and prison in a penal democracy. Duke University Press, 2007.
• James, Joy. The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 2005.
• James, Joy. Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
• James, Joy. 2003. ..... Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• James, Joy. States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
• James, Joy. Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.
• Davis, Angela Y., and Joy James. 1998. The Angela Y. Davis reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
• James, Joy. Transcending the Talented Tenth: Race Leaders and American Intellectualism. New York: Routledge, 1997.
• James, Joy. 1996. Resisting state violence: radicalism, gender, and race in U.S. culture. Minneapolis, Minn: University of Minnesota Press.
• James, Joy. Spirit, space & survival: African American women in (white) academe. New York: Routledge, 1993.