The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within US Slave Culture (Sexual Cultures Book 34)

The Delectable Negro is a groundbreaking work of scholarship that uncovers the hidden connections between homoeroticism, cannibalism, and cultures of consumption in the context of American literature and US slave culture.

Drawing on a wide range of texts, including slave narratives, runaway slave advertisements, and Black newspapers from the nineteenth century, Vincent Woodard sheds new light on the ways in which Black Americans experienced their consumption as a fundamentally homoerotic occurrence.

By taking the enslaved person's claims of human consumption seriously and exploring the racial assumptions, political aspirations, gender codes, and philosophical frameworks that dictated both European and white American arousal towards Black males and hunger for Black male flesh, Woodard offers a powerful and thought-provoking examination of the complex and often disturbing ways in which race, sexuality, and power intersect.

This is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of slavery, the experiences of Black Americans, or the broader cultural contexts that shape our understanding of race and identity today.