An anthology of essays devoted to the examination of filmmaker Julie Dashs ground-breaking film, Daughters of the Dust, this book celebrates the importance and influence of this film and positions it within the discourses of Black Feminism, Womanism, the LA Rebellion, New Black Cinema, Great Migration, The Black Arts tradition, Oral History, African American/Black/African diasporan Studies, and Black film/cinema studies. Employing a transdisciplinary approach to examining the film, the anthology includes chapters which examine unique aspects/themes of the film. At the core of each chapter, however, is a recognition of the influence of Black feminist/Womanist theory and politics and African American historyfrom enslavement to freedom/Reconstruction, Black political identity and liberation movement(s)and African/ African diasporan cosmology on Dashs work and how all work in concert in her masterful narrative of Black family, 20th Black womens identities, and the tension between modernity/tradition experienced by Gullah-Geechee people at the turn of the 20th century.

Patricia Williams Lessane is Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Morgan State University. She is a cultural anthropologist who has examined the impact of race, class, and gender in her work at cultural institutions including the College of Charleston's Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, Museum of Science and Industry, and The Field Museum in Chicago. She is a Fulbright Specialist and holds a doctorate in cultural anthropology from University of Illinois at Chicago, a Master of Arts Liberal Studies from Dartmouth College, and a BA in English from Fisk