Katherine Clay Bassard is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Her articles have been published in African American Review and Callaloo.

"Spiritual Interrogations marks a change in the very direction of the multiple academic disciplines that intersect at black (women's) studies."--Joycelyn Moody, Hamilton College, Signs

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction3Ch. 1The Daughters' Arrival: Histories, Theories, Vernaculars10Ch. 2Diaspora Subjectivity and Transatlantic Crossings: Phillis Wheatley's Poetics of Recovery28Ch. 3"The Too Advent'rous Strain": Slavery, Conversion, and Poetic Empowerment in Phillis Wheatley's Elegies58Ch. 4"Social Piety" in Ann Plato's Essays71Ch. 5"I Took a Text": Itinerancy, Community, and Intertextuality in Jarena Lee's Spiritual Narratives87Ch. 6Rituals of Desire: Spirit, Culture, and Sexuality in the Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson108Ch. 7Performing Community: Culture, Community, and African American Subjectivity before Emancipation127Afterword: The Sacred Subject140Notes143Selected Bibliography165Index177

Katherine Clay Bassard is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Her articles have been published in African American Review and Callaloo.

"Spiritual Interrogations marks a change in the very direction of the multiple academic disciplines that intersect at black (women's) studies."--Joycelyn Moody, Hamilton College, Signs

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction3Ch. 1The Daughters' Arrival: Histories, Theories, Vernaculars10Ch. 2Diaspora Subjectivity and Transatlantic Crossings: Phillis Wheatley's Poetics of Recovery28Ch. 3"The Too Advent'rous Strain": Slavery, Conversion, and Poetic Empowerment in Phillis Wheatley's Elegies58Ch. 4"Social Piety" in Ann Plato's Essays71Ch. 5"I Took a Text": Itinerancy, Community, and Intertextuality in Jarena Lee's Spiritual Narratives87Ch. 6Rituals of Desire: Spirit, Culture, and Sexuality in the Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson108Ch. 7Performing Community: Culture, Community, and African American Subjectivity before Emancipation127Afterword: The Sacred Subject140Notes143Selected Bibliography165Index177

Katherine Clay Bassard is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Her articles have been published in African American Review and Callaloo.

"Spiritual Interrogations marks a change in the very direction of the multiple academic disciplines that intersect at black (women's) studies."--Joycelyn Moody, Hamilton College, Signs

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction3Ch. 1The Daughters' Arrival: Histories, Theories, Vernaculars10Ch. 2Diaspora Subjectivity and Transatlantic Crossings: Phillis Wheatley's Poetics of Recovery28Ch. 3"The Too Advent'rous Strain": Slavery, Conversion, and Poetic Empowerment in Phillis Wheatley's Elegies58Ch. 4"Social Piety" in Ann Plato's Essays71Ch. 5"I Took a Text": Itinerancy, Community, and Intertextuality in Jarena Lee's Spiritual Narratives87Ch. 6Rituals of Desire: Spirit, Culture, and Sexuality in the Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson108Ch. 7Performing Community: Culture, Community, and African American Subjectivity before Emancipation127Afterword: The Sacred Subject140Notes143Selected Bibliography165Index177