Searching for Sycorax: Black Women's Hauntings of Contemporary Horror

by Kinitra D. Brooks

Searching for Sycorax highlights the unique position of Black women in horror as both characters and creators. Kinitra D. Brooks creates a racially gendered critical analysis of African diasporic women, challenging the horror genre’s historic themes and interrogating forms of literature that have often been ignored by Black feminist theory.

Brooks examines the works of women across the African diaspora, from Haiti, Trinidad, and Jamaica, to England and the United States, looking at new and canonized horror texts by Nalo Hopkinson, NK Jemisin, Gloria Naylor, and Chesya Burke. These Black women fiction writers take advantage of horror’s ability to highlight U.S. white dominant cultural anxieties by using Africana folklore to revise horror’s semiotics within their own imaginary.

Ultimately, Brooks compares the legacy of Shakespeare’s Sycorax (of The Tempest) to Black women writers themselves, who, deprived of mainstream access to self-articulation, nevertheless influence the trajectory of horror criticism by forcing the genre to de-centralize whiteness and maleness.  

Genres: Nonfiction, Horror, Race, Literary Criticism, Feminism, Essays

220 pages, Paperback

Published December 7, 2017

Reviews

[Thistle & Verse · Rating 3 out of 5]

The synopsis is a bit misleading. This book isn't really a literary analysis. Each chapter is pretty much independent of all the other chapters, so it's hard to explain what it's actually about, but I think it's mostly a history of genre classification and how Black women writing horror have navigated genre boundaries. Disjointed, but I enjoyed it, and it gave me things to think about. Full discussion here: https://youtu.be/5fGnTg8xOh8

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. It’s a clear, easy read, that considers current ways of assessing “black women in horror”, from reading lists, film critics, literary critics and fantasy critics, and then proposes some new approaches.

It’s written from “within” a fantastical critical tradition I’m familiar with -Attebery, Barr, Clute, Mendlesohn and Heinlein of all people— are cited possibly unnecessarily, tho the use of Clute to discuss Jemisin’s first trilogy is nice; and the use of Black Feminist theory to discuss speculative fiction is fascinating.

I think what makes the book work for me is the same thing that might annoy others: instead of arguing for one theoretical approach, Brooks uses a range of theory as a filter, scrutinising her texts through each in turn.

Highly recommended.

Nb. The index is annoyingly incomplete.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about Searching for Sycorax. While I deeply value Brooks's exploration of depictions of Black women in horror texts, I find some of her claims as a bit too overgeneralized for both the field of horror studies and in horror films given the increased number of Black women characters in the genre since this book has came out. However, I have to remind myself this book came out in 2017, and, while Searching for Sycorax may feel dated in some minor ways to me as a horror scholar in 2023, her claims seem far more valid in the landscape of that era, however, recent 2017 actually still is. My main "issue" though deals with the concept of fluid fiction Brooks's proposes and how the term feels more like a definition for the sake of academic coinage rather than a concept that needed to be coined.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. I am on my phone and can't do this original and very necessary work justice with a more detailed review.

[Leland Merritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brooks writes an incredible examination of black women in contemporary horror. She comes at it through a black feminist lens and it is trusty enlightening. I highly recommend.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can find my review here on Sci Fi and Scary:

https://www.scifiandscary.com/searchi...

[Sistermagpie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A super interesting overview of the place--or absence of place--of the black woman's pov in the horror genre. Going in I probably assumed it would be looking at different and movies, describing what roles black women had in them etc., but its pov looks wider than that. The author uses Sycorax, a character from Shakespeare's The Tempest, to embody this unique/pov that isn't focused on in horror, so you have to look for her. Sometimes she shows up in unexpected places. For instance, there's a really interested section on the works of Nina Simone and Memphis Minnie, whose blues music connects directly to conjure women traditions.

To me, as a horror fan, it was just a fascinating new way of looking at things--and of course it includes plenty of great recommendations for movies/books/music to check out.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Brooks addresses the underwhelming and nearly absent presentation of complex African American women in horror media, but does so in a call not just for writers in general to pick up the slack, but to challenge the meaning of horror media itself. Brooks looks at a more fluid definition of speculative media to see how African-American women conjure spells in their most powerful works, challenging others and the western canon itself to accept these fluid forms as serious endeavors, which they clearly are. Brooks even provides a wonderful context of how folklore pervades even into music and music video. The book offers itself in a very academic and critical style, which may be a little offputting at first, but her purpose and context are quite clear.