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Tracing a dynamic genealogy of performance from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, in this book the author contends that Black women artists practiced a purposeful self-objectification, transforming themselves into art objects. In doing so, these artists raised new ways to ponder the intersections of art, performance, and Black female embodiment. Hence, McMillan reframes the concept of the avatar in the service of Black performance art, describing Black women performers' skillful manipulation of synthetic selves and adroit projection of their performances into other representational mediums. Also, the work analyzes daring performances of alterity staged by "ancient negress" Joice Heth and fugitive enslave person Ellen Craft, seminal artists Adrian Piper and Howardena Pindell, and contemporary visual and music artists Simone Leigh and Nicki Minaj