Veil and Vow - Reviews
“This is fascinating reading. Veil and Vow perfectly captures how fairy-tale aspirations of wedlock intersect with the supposed bootstrap mobility of the ‘American Dream,’ undergirding angst about the marriage market in crisis. Henderson’s generative analysis wrestles with a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction texts, media platforms, and popular culture forms. This book makes major interventions in gender, sexuality, and African American studies, as well as the study of contemporary politics and culture.”--Tera W. Hunter, author of Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century
“In this era when the term ‘marriage equality’ signals political possibilities for some, Aneeka Henderson’s brilliant Veil and Vow recalls the historical and contemporary challenges that matrimony has posed for Black women--often on the fringes of full citizenship and safety--and their ingenuity in claiming an equality that worked for them.”--Mark Anthony Neal, author of Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities
"Veil and Vow models interdisciplinary scholarship at its finest as it analyzes several modes of black cultural expressivity--from literature, to film, to music--to investigate how ideas about black people's intimate relations continue to shape public policy in the post–civil rights era."--Robert J. Patterson, author of Destructive Desires: Rhythm and Blues Culture and the Politics of Racial Equality
“The denial of Black humanity has long been bound up with questions about Black people’s ability to love. Veil and Vow affirms the cultural consistency of Black love and marriage. There is simply no other book on the subject that has the interdisciplinary and popular culture reach of this one. Aneeka Henderson refutes, enlightens and provokes. Read her book!”--Noliwe Rooks, author of Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education