ABSTRACT
Throughout this volume I accentuate the visionary nature of Cooper’s intersectional politics, her interdisciplinary methodology, and her reflexive, embodied, and socially accountable model of philosophy. Consciously, I have focused more on Cooper’s foresight than on her oversights not because I want readers to view her as a stereotypical Black feminist “cipher of transgression” (Philip), a critical superheroine who busted down walls right and left. I recognize and refuse the “superficial attractions of strength” (T. Harris, Saints 10-11) that continue to predominate both in fictional representations of Black women and in critical analyses of Black women’s ideas. My claim is not that Cooper is beyond critique, nor that she should be thought of in this way: this would flatten out her legacy and belittle her ideas. But I have emphasized methods for identifying Cooper’s insights and for further understanding the innovation in her work because the critical and interpretive terrain has been uneven; the rhetorical space into which Cooper spoke and continues to be read is asymmetrical rather than equal.
