Bokus
Elizabeth J. West - African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction, Inbunden

Inbunden, Engelska, 2011

African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction

Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature and Being

Av Elizabeth J. West

1546 kr

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Beskrivning
African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction: Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature and Being is the nexus to scholarship on manifestations of Africanisms in black art and culture, particularly the scant critical works focusing on African metaphysical retentions. This study examines New World African spirituality as a syncretic dynamic of spiritual retentions and transformations that have played prominently in the literary imagination of black women writers. Beginning with the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, African Spiritualityin Black Women’s Fiction traces applications and transformations of African spirituality in black women’s writings that culminate in the conscious and deliberate celebration of Africanity in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. The journey from Wheatley’s veiled remembrances to Hurston’s explicit gaze of continental Africa represents the literary journey of black women writers to represent Africa as not only a very real creative resource but also a liberating one. Hurston’s icon of black female autonomy and self realization is woven from the thread work of African spiritual principles that date back to early black women’s writings.
Produktinformation
  • Utgivningsdatum: 2011-11-10
  • Mått: 161 x 240 x 18 mm
  • Vikt: 445 g
  • Format: Inbunden
  • Språk: Engelska
  • Antal sidor: 192
  • Förlag: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
  • ISBN: 9780739168851
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Mer om författaren

Elizabeth J. West is an associate professor of English at Georgia State University. She received her Ph.D. in English with a certificate in Women's Studies from Emory University. Her research and teaching focuses on representations of gender, race, class, and spirituality in early American and African American literary works. She has published articles in anthologies and in CLA, MELUS, JCCH, Womanist, Black Magnolias, and South Central Review. She was an invited speaker and discussant for the 2009 Summer Transnational American Studies Seminar (sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service) at the University of Mainz (Germany). She was a 2002 AAUW Research Fellow and a ROOTS 2003 NEH Summer Seminar Participant (6/2-7/11 Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and University of Virginia). She has served as a Special Delegate for the Modern Language Association, and she is currently Assistant Treasurer for the College Language Association.

Recensioner i media

West's fine study adds to a growing body of literature demonstrating the impact of African heritage on African American culture. West (Georgia State Univ.) makes an important advance on this tradition, exploring ways in which African spirituality is woven into the more obvious Christian elements of the works. This clearly written, well-researched study treats the canon of African women's literature from Phillis Wheatley through the Harlem Renaissance. The author discusses well-known works--Frances Harper's Iola Leroy, Harriet Jacobs's Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Nella Larsen's Quicksand--but is at her best in her exploration of less-familiar texts, e.g., Hannah Crafts's The Bondswoman's Narrative; Gifts of Power, a collection of Rebecca Jackson's writings (CH, Dec'81); and Jarena Lee's Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee....The specificity of the topic makes the book most appropriate for large collections. Summing Up: Recommended.

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