Moving Stones // About the Art of Edmonia Lewis (The Visual Arts of Africa and its Diasporas)

Moving Stonesexplores the extraordinary life and work of Edmonia Lewis, the Black and Ojibwe sculptor who rose to international fame in the nineteenth century.

Blending biography, history, and theory, Jennifer DeVere Brody approaches Lewis’s legacy through a Black feminist and queer lens, illuminating how her sculptures and self-fashioning challenged constraints of her time. Living much of her life in Rome as a free Afro-Native woman, Lewis used neoclassical forms to carve out a life in art. Brody considers how Lewis’s works were viewed historically and how they resonate with postmodern artists, engaging themes of race, materiality, sexuality, and embodiment. Rethinking one of the most important sculptors of her era, Moving Stonesshows how Lewis’s art continues to inspire contemporary artists and scholars today.

Jennifer DeVere Brody is Professor of Theater and Performance Studies as well as African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author ofPunctuation: Art, Politics and PlayandImpossible Purities: Blackness, Femininity and Victorian Cultureand the co-editor of James Baldwin’sLittle Man, Little Man, all of which were published by Duke University Press.

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publish Date: June 9, 2026
• Pages: 10
• Language: English
• Type: Paperback
• EAN/UPC: 9781478038528
• Dimensions: 8.9 X 6.0 X 0.8 inches | 0.9 pounds
• BISAC Categories: Arts & Hobbies, Politics