Gerund, Katharina (2016):
"Searching for Sisterhood: Friendship and Sorority Culture in Tajuana Butler's Sorority Sisters." Current Perspectives in Transnational Black Studies. Special issue of Black Studies Papers 2.1: 77-98.
Journal Article
Abstract

This essay examines Tajuana Butler’s Sorority Sisters (1998) regarding its portrayal of friendship, sisterhood, and sorority culture. The novel conceptualizes ‘sisterhood’ as a fictive kinship structure and emphasizes the empowering potential of friendship among women. It fully embraces sorority culture and presents pledging as a ‘social drama’ in all its facets. Overall, Sorority Sisters provides an intervention into dominant representations of sorority life and black femininity. Yet, this intervention hinges on a discursive system of control shaped by conventional femininity and an uncritical affirmation of the ideology, practices, and significance of sororities.