"Long overdue, Layli Phillips' The Womanist Reader is a pioneering text that illuminates the genealogy of womanism and its complex meanings. Phillips' articulation of its connections with and departures from both 'feminism' and 'black feminism' is cogent and provocative. This anthology lays the groundwork for future scholarship on this little understood analytic construct, but critically important intervention in the broad project of social justice."
-Beverly Guy-Sheftall, editor of Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought and Director of the Women's Center, Spelman College
"Bringing together many groundbreaking articulations of womanist thought, Layli Philips has assembled a superb collection. The
Womanist Reader is essential reading for womanists, feminists, activists, and scholars in many disciplines, including women's studies, Africana studies, African-American Studies, ethnic studies, and American Studies."
-AnaLouise Keating, coeditor of this bridge we call home and Professor of Women's Studies, Texas Woman's University
"This important reader is a theoretical and methodological breakthrough in our understanding of womanist scholarship from a wide array of disciplines. This is essential reading that highlights the contributions of womanism to gender theory and praxis."
-Filomina Steady, editor of The Black Woman Cross-Culturally and Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, Wellesley College
"Layli Phillips' comprehensive anthology is a much-needed reader for today and for generations to come. The Womanist Reader chronicles twenty-five years of juxtapositioned insights and empowering revelations by womanists across the disciplines."
-Katie G. Cannon, author of Katie's Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community
