Emerging from a 1987 conference held at Rutgers University with the same name, this collection of essays borrows ideas from print, conference presentation and conversation sources of leading Black feminist scholars. The editor, Wall, states: “The overarching question was how to bring the terms criticism, theory, and writing by black women into conjunction” (10). I really enjoyed many of the essays in this collection, including those by McDowell, Tate, and Willis, but it lacked some of the fire and depth of other anthologies I've read this summer, including _This Bridge Called My Back_ and _All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of us are Brave_.