Reviews of previous work:"Joy James is poised to become a major figure among contemporary black intellectuals." - Mark Anthony Neal, Washington Post Book World
"A provocative look at the dynamics of race, gender, and radicalism." - Ebony
"This collection is certain to become another essential text in the field of women's studies. . . Recommended for public and academic libraries." Library Journal
"...James examines the increasingly larger role played by black intellectuals, their legacy and their responsibilities to their people." -- Publishers Weekly
"Calling for a radicalism that engages the continuum of the black political struggle from the earliest slave rebellion to contemporary battles against racism and ehtnocentrism, James models the initial critique necessary for transcendence of the conventional talented tenth." -- SIGNS Spring 2000
"This volume brings together ten essays in the development of black feminism. The selections reflect the literary, social and political critiques that mark this form of feminist and antiracist thought as unique and transformative." Black Issues Book Review
"James represents an important voice in the current debate around the future of the race." -- Quarterly Black Review of Books
The voices in Imprisoned Intellectuals tear apart common assumptions about the impossibility of resistance and survival. ― San Francisco Bay Guardian Literary Supplement
Praise for Joy James
"Transcending the Talented Tenth proposes original analyses of historical portrayals of the African American intelligentsia as a way of understanding the contested terrain on which contemporary black intellectuals work. … Joy James' work is a pioneering intervention." -- Angela Y. Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz
“This extraordinary collection brings us their voices, their ideas, which have been muffled too long.” -- Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States and professor emeritus of Political Science, Boston University
"Remarkable...James reveals a radical tradition that could free us all." - Robin D. G. Kelley
"In this extraordinary volume, James brings together the powerful voices of prison resistance, past and present, providing the intellectual foundations for a comparative approach to our understanding of criminal justice as a tool for political repression. Imprisoned Intellectuals creates a critical scholarly resource for interpreting criminal justice and its impact on race, gender, and class hierarchies of power." -- Manning Marable, M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies, Columbia University
“Imprisoned Intellectuals is an inspiring intervention in a conversation that is critical to our very survival. -- Michael Eric Dyson, author of Open Mike: Reflections on Philosophy, Race, Sex, Culture, and Religion
"Americans have a hard time thinking about race, gender, and class at the same time, especially when intellectuals are in question. But not Joy James. Her refreshing discussion of black thought refuses to stop with men or the highly educated. This is what African-American Studies is about in the best sense of the phrase." -- Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History, Princeton University
A unique and very significant contribution. -- Bettina Aptheker, University of California, Santa Cruz
A superb collection―both instructive and inspiring. Joy James is to be complimented for this book and for her thoughtful introductory essay. -- Dennis Brutus, poet and former political prisoner of South African Apartheid
“…this Joy James reader is at its core a portrait of ‘the making of a dissident voice’ … What we most desperately need in a world that fears and silences opposition―or worse―are revolutionaries who speak truth to power and beckon us to stand with them in solidarity. A luta continua. The struggle continues.” ― from the Foreword by Beverly Guy-Sheftall
“These essays detail how the continual intensification of criminalization is grounded in the principles of racism, expropriation, and aggression that centrally organize the land of the ever-diminishing free.”—Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California
“These broad-ranging essays circle around the topic of building community under siege. Communities can be ‘thorny ties,’ as Joy James notes, yet are vital for developing a critical consciousness on one’s society. James also provides an astute analysis of the antirevolutionary trends in social theory today. Herein one will find the voice of a dissident humanist in full flower.” ― Linda Martín Alcoff, coeditor of Constructing the Nation: A Race and Nationalism Reader
“Joy James' excellent volume demands our involvement in the struggle.” -- Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut
