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Jennifer Christine Nash is the Jean Fox O'Barr Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University within its Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Her research interests include Black feminist theory, feminist legal theory, Black sexual politics, black motherhood, black maternal health, race and law, and intersectionality,

Education
Nash earned her PhD in African American Studies at Harvard University, her JD at Harvard Law School, and an AB in women's studies at Harvard College.

Career
Nash is critical of approaches to intersectionality that demand either uncritical, unqualified support or outright rejection. she points out that intersectionality is used by academic institutions solely to secure funding and by white feminists to repair the racist, west-centered intellectual history of feminism. In both cases, Black feminism is not pursued to improve the living conditions of Black women, but rather, to support the “growth” of white feminists and academic institutions. This effectively reinforces the same power structures that feminism intends to break down. Additionally, this promotes the notion that all Black feminists concur with each other's opinions, severely disregarding the heterogeneity of Black feminist discourse. Nash instead calls for a critical engagement with the discursive formations produced under the heading of intersectionality.

In particular, Nash has identified and problematized an emerging posture of territoriality and defensiveness characterizing some intersectionality discourses. This territorial posture objects to the use of intersectionality as a means of “appropriating” Black women’s struggles to the struggles of other marginalized groups. Professor Nash sees this posture as a reiteration of a regime of territoriality, which threatens to make intersectionality into property to be defended and guarded despite black feminism's longstanding anticaptivity orientation, and the tradition's deep critiques of how logics of property enshrine boundaries and ensure that value is communicated exclusively through ownership.

Dr. Nash summarizes her stance on Black Feminism near the end of the Introduction in her book “Black Feminism Reimagined”: "In theorizing how black feminism has become constrained, I am not arguing that black feminism is dead or dying... . Instead, I insist that black feminism — theory, politics, and praxis — is alive and vibrant, containing rich new debates about eroticism, reproduction, visual culture, maternity, and surveillance. But this vibrancy has not been captured in debates around intersectionality.... I dream of black feminist theory that puts pressure on women’s studies to recognize the utopian world-making work of our still unfolding political dreaming, which includes but also exceeds intersectionality."

Selected publications[edit]

 * Birthing Black Mothers. Duke University Press, 2021.
 * Black Feminism Reimagined After Intersectionality. Duke University Press, 2018.
 * The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography. Duke University Press, 2014.

Edited publications[edit]

 * Gender: Love. Macmillan Reference, 2016.
 * The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities. Routledge, 2023. Co-editor with Samantha Pinto
 * Black Feminism on the Edge. Duke University Press, 2023. Co-editor with Samantha Pinto.

Awards[edit]

 * Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize. Awarded to The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography by the GL/Q Caucus in the Modern Language Association.
 * Gloria Anzaldúa Book Prize. Awarded to Black Feminism Reimagined After Intersectionality by the National Women's Studies Association.
 * Honorable mention for Gloria Anzaldúa Book Prize. Awarded to Birthing Black Mothers by the National Women's Studies Association.

Selected publications

 * Birthing Black Mothers. Duke University Press, 2021.
 * Black Feminism Reimagined After Intersectionality. Duke University Press, 2018.
 * The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography. Duke University Press, 2014