Sending Language into Battle: Interview with Hortense J. Spillers

Abstract In this conversation with Denise Ferreira da Silva, which unfolded over a period of twelve months, Hortense Spillers comments on critical political events and moments, which coincide with major markers in her academic trajectory. Each of these historical and personal milestones becomes, then, the backdrop against which one can appreciate how much of her thinking and writing are critical reflections and analytical interventions on questions and themes that prevailed at a given juncture. Through Spillers's comments on what has animated her writings on the Black sermon, the flesh, psychoanalysis, and Black culture, for instance, we gather the image that is the most appropriate presentation of Black thought, which is that of thinking in the thick of it.