THICK: a crumbling freak show Bibliography
What kind of person comes to a freak show? That is one of the many questions asked by Jenn Freeman | Po’Chop in their performance, THICK: a crumbling freak show.
Presented in conversation with Marti Lyons’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, THICK is an exploration of embodiment, eroticism, and liberation, and Jenn has generously shared a bibliography of works that have inspired their performance. Listen, read, and watch alongside us—enjoy!
A Note from Jenn Freeman
The bibliography for THICK: a crumbling freak show is a study in refusal. Certain entries are redacted as an acknowledgment that what is known of this individual is knowledge born of racism, exploitation, and spectacle. To continue sharing these names and monikers uncritically would be to participate in that same violence. The redactions are deliberate. They gesture toward the limits of the archive and honor the right of the Black feminine to remain illegible.
Bibliography
Abdurraqib, H. (2021). This one goes out to all the magical negroes. In A little devil in America: Notes in praise of Black performance (Movement II: Suspending disbelief, pp. 49–67). Random House.
Abrahams, Y. (1998). Images of XXXXXXX: Sexuality, race, and gender in early-nineteenth-century Britain. In R. R. Pierson & R. Chaudhuri (Eds.), Nation, empire, colony: Historicizing gender and race (pp. 220–236). Indiana University Press.
Bogdan, R. (1990). Freak show: Presenting human oddities for amusement and profit. University of Chicago Press.
Browne, S. (2015). Dark matters: On the surveillance of Blackness. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822375302
Cottom, T. M. (2019). Thick: And other essays. The New Press.
Crais, C., & Scully, P. (2010). XXXXXXX and the XXXXXXX: A ghost story and a biography. Princeton University Press.
Dunn, K. (1989). Geek love. Grove Press.
Ebony Magazine. (1949, December). Magicians. Ebony Magazine, 4(12), 72–76.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (1995). Gender, race, and nation: The comparative anatomy of “XXXXXXX” women in Europe, 1815–1817. In Deviant bodies: Critical perspectives on difference in science and popular culture (pp. 19–48). Indiana University Press.
Franklin, K. (2018). Under the knife. Candor Arts. (Read an excerpt here)
Garland-Thomson, R. (Ed.). (1996). Freakery: cultural spectacles of the extraordinary body. NYU Press.
Hartman, S. (2008). Venus in two acts. Small Axe, 12(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1215/-12-2-1
Hitt, E. (2023, January 30). Experimental criticism / choreography in moving pictures: Six ways of looking at Blondell Cummings. ASAP/J. https://asapjournal.com/node/experimental-criticism-4-choreography-in-moving-pictures-six-ways-of-looking-at-blondell-cummings-elinor-hitt/
Hobson, J. (2005). Venus in the dark: Blackness and beauty in popular culture. Routledge.
Holmes, R. (2020). The XXXXXXX venus: The life and death of XXXXXXX. Bloomsbury Publishing.
I Inspire Productions. (2019, February 18). I am XXXXXXX [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4aVsKYPATM
Juarez, K., Peabody, R., & Phillips, G. (Eds.). (2021). Blondell Cummings: Dance as moving pictures. X Artists’ Books
Magus, J. (1995). Magical heroes: The lives and legends of great African American magicians. Magus Enterprises.
Magus, J., & Magus, M. (2020). That old black magic: The lives & legends of great African American magicians. Lulu Press, Inc.
Maseko, Z. (Director). (1999). The life and times of XXXXXXX: “The XXXXXXX Venus” [Film]. Icarus Film.
Maseko, Z. (Director). (2003). The return of XXXXXXX [Film]. Icarus Film.
Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf.
Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Harvard University Press.
New Birth Mbc. (2024, June 26). Innov8 conference live from Newbirth | Dr. Jamal Bryant [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncOvwdyCJj8&t=3489s
Rankine, C. (2014). Chapter II. In Citizen: An American lyric (pp. 23–36). Graywolf Press.
Ray Banger. (2021, August 2). Blondell Cummings—commitment: two portraits [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MXAdEAFr4A
Sobanski, J. (2008, January). Mistress of modern magic. MUM Magazine, 49(1), 52–54.
SBG Book Club. (2021). Mama’s baby: papa’s maybe by Hortense Spillers [Playlist]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc2pibz8smdkkmSBu3VTAjJdx7H1nV677
Spillers, H. J. (1987). Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: An American grammar book. Diacritics, 17(2), 64–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/464747
Strother, Z. S. (1999). Display of the body: XXXXXXX. In B. Lindfors (Ed.), Africans on stage (pp. 1–61). Indiana University Press.
Weinraub, L. (Director). (2018). The shakedown [Film]
Willis, D. (Ed.). (2010). Black Venus 2010: They called her “XXXXXXX“. Temple University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bt8mv
Young, H. B. (2017). Illegible will: Coercive spectacles of labor in South Africa and the diaspora. Duke University Press.