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Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts
"Washington writes supple and thoughtful prose and creatively integrates African and African-derived terminology, which never distract the reader. I consider Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts not only a brilliant study, but also a model to be emulated." —Ousseynou B. Traore, William Patterson University Àjé is a Yoruba word that signifies a spiritual power of vast potential, as well as the human beings who exercise that power. Although both men and women can have Àjé, its owners and controllers are women, the literal and cosmic Mothers who are revered as the gods of society. Because of its association with female power, its invisibility and profundity, Àjé is often misconstrued as w...
Yemoja
Finalist for the 2014 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions presented by the Journal of Africana Religions This is the first collection of essays to analyze intersectional religious and cultural practices surrounding the deity Yemoja. In Afro-Atlantic traditions, Yemoja is associated with motherhood, women, the arts, and the family. This book reveals how Yemoja traditions are negotiating gender, sexuality, and cultural identities in bold ways that emphasize the shifting beliefs and cultural practices of contemporary times. Contributors come from a wide range of fields—religious studies, art history, literature, and anthropology—and focus on the central concern of how different religious communities explore issues of race, gender, and sexuality through religious practice and discourse. The volume adds the voices of religious practitioners and artists to those of scholars to engage in conversations about how Latino/a and African diaspora religions respond creatively to a history of colonization.
Oshun's Daughters
Examines the ways in which the inclusion of African diasporic religious practices serves as a transgressive tool in narrative discourses in the Americas. Oshuns Daughters examines representations of African diasporic religions from novels and poems written by women in the United States, the Spanish Caribbean, and Brazil. In spite of differences in age, language, and nationality, these women writers all turn to variations of traditional Yoruba religion (Santería/Regla de Ocha and Candomblé) as a source of inspiration for creating portraits of womanhood. Within these religious systems, binaries that dominate European thoughtman/woman, mind/body, light/dark, good/evildo not function in ...
Rewriting Black Identities
Topics include: 'Complexity and Continuity'; 'Transition, Exclusion and Illusion'; 'The Use of an Eye'; 'Fragmentation and Reconstruction'; 'Shifting Foundations'; 'Living History'; and more.
Afro-Cuban Religions and the Arts
Afro-Cuban Religions and the Arts: A Dog Has Four LegsBut Takes Only One Path argues for an understanding of Afro-Cuban religions and Vodou through the arts, be it through music, the visual arts, film, or literature. This book examines the philosophical and spiritual facets of religions like Regla de Ocha, Palo, Abakuá, and Vodou, and how deeply embedded they are in Cuban popular culture. Cuban popular music, from son to salsa, timba to rap, offer reflections on Ocha, Palo, and Abakuá influences. Film and visual arts borrow allegory from Regla de Ocha and Palo beliefs. Myth and the Haitian Revolution is embedded throughout the work of Alejo Carpentier, Aimé Césaire, and Derek Walcott. This volume seeks to dialogue with the works of contemporary artists and Caribbean ancestors such as C.L.R. James, Wilson Harris, and Fernández-Retamar, in order to show the impacts that spiritualism, religious belief, and mythology have had on Afro-Cuban art.
John Steinbeck and His Contemporaries
In March of 2006, scholars from around the world gathered in Sun Valley, Idaho for a conference devoted to not only John Steinbeck but also to the authors whose work influenced, informs, or illuminates his writings. This volume represents the many unique papers delivered at that conference by scholars from around the world. This collection includes studies on authors who influenced Steinbeck's work, discussions of writers whose work is in dialogue with Steinbeck, and examinations of Steinbeck's contemporaries, whose individual works invite comparisons with those of the Nobel-prize winning author. Revealing Steinbeck's penchant for culling 'all old books,' the first section focuses on Steinbe...
The Fiction of Gloria Naylor
The Fiction of Gloria Naylor is one of the very first critical studies of this acclaimed writer. Including an insightful interview with Naylor and focusing on her first four novels, the book situates various acts of insurgency throughout her work within a larger framework of African American opposition to hegemonic authority. But what truly distinguishes this volume is its engagement with African American vernacular forms and twentieth-century political movements. In her provocative analysis, Maxine Lavon Montgomery argues that Naylor constantly attempts to reconfigure the home and homespace to be more conducive to black self-actualization, thus providing a stark contrast to a dominant white...
Toni Morrison's Beloved
A collection of critical essays that examine Toni Morrison's novel "Beloved," with a chronology of the author's life, an overview of the novel, its plot, themes, characters, and literary impact, and an introduction by Harold Bloom.
Divining the Self
Divining the Self weaves elements of personal narrative, myth, history, and interpretive analysis into a vibrant tapestry that reflects the textured, embodied, and performative nature of scripture and scripturalizing practices. Velma Love examines the Odu—the Yoruba sacred scriptures—along with the accompanying mythology, philosophy, and ritual technologies engaged by African Americans. Drawing from the personal narratives of African American Ifa practitioners along with additional ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Oyotunji African Village, South Carolina, and New York City, Love’s work explores the ways in which an ancient worldview survives in modern times. Divining the Self also takes up the challenge of determining what it means for the scholar of religion to study scripture as both text and performance. This work provides an excellent case study of the sociocultural phenomenon of scripturalizing practices.
