Professor, Department of Philosophy, Affiliate faculty, Rock Ethics Institute

(Fall 2026)

Variants in the Machine: Black Mothers Making Futures Against Natal Alienation pursues a counter-history of Black mothering practice in the Black Atlantic. The book anchors this counter-history in what scholars of Slavery Studies and Critical Black Studies identify as the core violation of the trade, namely the natal alienation and social death of African peoples trafficked to Atlantic plantations. The book is organized around a re-telling of the stories of three historical Black mothers: Harriet Jacobs, Mamie Till-Mobley, and the mother at the center of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Sethe. Through a section dedicated to each mother, I develop a conceptual framework that can make legible what, in their respective Black mothering practice, consists of stealing back from the stolen time of natal alienation in order to create conditions of social life for their children. As first premises of this conceptual development work, I offer the Loophole (in the case of Jacobs), the Open Casket (in the case of Mamie Till-Mobley), and the Grave (in the case of Morrison’s Sethe). I argue that, despite being apparent sites of confinement, the Loophole, the Open Casket and the Grave (the frames organizing the three main parts of the book) condition the possibility of an excess to emerge despite and against their strictures. This excess, I argue, is an excess of Black social life. In other words, via the Loophole, the Open Casket and the Grave, I will offer an account of how Black mothers re-animated Black social life by positioning their children under the shelter of kin, in a relational lineage between ancestors and descendants.