Critical Perspectives on Undergraduate Black Women

Abstract

This project is one of reclamation, an attempt to explore and name Black undergraduate women’s experiences in higher education scholarship. As a Black queer trans person, Audre Lorde knew all too well the ways in which society defined Black women and the dangers associated with the confinement embedded in those definitions. Today, there are many fantasies about Black women in higher education that must be critically interrogated and examined to illuminate the complexities of our experiences across the higher education landscape. This project is one effort devoted to the interruption of epistemic violence enacted to silence, marginalize, and dehumanize Black women, particularly at the undergraduate level. Scholars and practitioners know little about the experiences of Black undergraduate women, and what is presumed to be known has in large part been constructed outside Black women’s communities, devoid of a critical lens, and treated as insignificant.