Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance

Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance (NYU Press, 2018) turns toward sensation and aesthetics in order to imagine epistemologies of sensuality that emerge from fleshiness. Using analyses of particular works of art, each chapter draws attention to specific aspects of pornotropic capture that black and brown people must negotiate while also identifying moments of brown jouissance that exceed these constraints. In addition to containing critiques of normativity and proffering epistemologies of sensuality against those of sexuality, the book argues for sensation and aesthetics as minoritarian forms of knowledge.