Intersections : A Contemporary Student Primer on Race, Gender, and Class

Intersections: A Contemporary Student Primer on Race, Gender, and Class provides students with an illuminating and timely collection of articles pertaining to these key social issues in American history and contemporary culture. Students learn how to recognize the intersections of race, gender, and class, how to navigate these intersections in academic and personal pursuits, and how to serve as change agents for social justice. 

The anthology is divided into four units: theoretical foundations, historical perspectives, American culture, and contemporary moments. In Unit 1, students read selections that introduce Black feminist thought and shed light on income disparity. Unit 2 includes readings that examine labor and race relations in American history and culture. The articles in Unit 3 focus on American popular culture and competing standards of beauty. The final unit offers selections that explore the politics of constructions of womanhood, manhood, motherhood, and fatherhood through the lens of the Obama White House. Each reading is supported by pre-reading questions that inspire critical thinking and self-reflection, as well as post-reading questions that challenge deeper analysis concerning issues of power and empowerment. 

A diverse collection of current scholarship, Intersections is well suited for courses in history, politics, economics, sociology, gender studies, ethnic studies, and popular culture.

Maureen Elgersman Lee is an associate professor of history at Hampton University. She earned a doctorate of arts in humanities with a concentration in African-American studies and a M.A. in African and African-American studies from Clark Atlanta University. She is the author of Unyielding Spirits: Black Women and Slavery in Early Canada and Jamaica and Black Bangor: African Americans in a Maine Community, 1880-1950, for which she received the Leadership in History Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History, as well as the “Best of the Best of the University Presses – Outstanding Title” Award from the American Library Association. She is the co-author, with Roice D. Luke and Stacy L. Burrs, of Richmond’s Leigh Street Armory and African American Militia.