LaMonda Horton-Stallings, a women’s studies professor at this university, won an award for her book, Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures, which discusses the sexual cultures and freedoms of African-American individuals.
Last month, the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, a group of scholars who both research and support the study of pop culture, awarded Horton-Stallings the 2016 Emily Toth Award. This award is issued to authors who are considered to have the best single work in pop cultural issues.
“It feels good to have people recognize your work,” Horton-Stallings said. “You want it to be something that you can use in your classrooms. You want that stuff that you write to matter outside of the classroom.”
Horton-Stallings said the purpose of her book was to give an inside look at marginalized sexual groups within the black community.
“I tried to look at the ways in which they have been represented negatively and provide analysis of why people’s sexual cultures have been misunderstood,” Horton-Stallings said.
Horton-Stallings said her book is also related to the topics she teaches in her class, WMST468B: Feminist Cultural Studies; Sonic Representations of Gender and Sexuality in the African Diaspora.
“In some chapters I talk about black women’s reproductive justice,” Horton-Stallings said. “About two years ago, some billboards said that the most dangerous place for an African-American child is in an African-American woman’s womb. I use that example in my classes to talk about some of the ways black women are guilted into not having these conversations about reproductive freedom.”
Elsa Barkley-Brown, a history and women’s studies professor at this university, said she relates to some of book’s topics because she also teaches women’s studies classes.
Barkley-Brown said she had read Horton-Stallings’ book and saw how the issues she discussed would help college students understand complex topics.
“Her work on sexuality is both really groundbreaking and exciting,” Barkley-Brown said. “Her work moves outside of defining all kinds of sexuality and what is respectable and what’s not.” Horton-Stallings also said her book discusses 19th-century issues pertaining to black women’s sexuality and how they were often portrayed as promiscuous.
“I’ve taught classes on HIV, AIDS, black cultures and communities,” Horton-Stallings said. “I’ve used my classes to talk about some of the things that can help prevent things like that from happening.”
The Lambda Literary Awards, an organization celebrating the best LGBTQ books of the year, also named Horton-Stallings’ book as a finalist for a Lammy award.
Robyn Muncy, interim chairwoman of the women’s studies department, said she is proud of Horton-Stallings as her work helps to bring light to the importance of women’s studies.
“Her new book makes a powerful case for the centrality of the arts and humanities in producing progressive social and political transformations as it insists on the liberatory insight within art rarely considered part of the canon, including YouTube videos, sex manuals, and popular music,” Muncy wrote in an email.
