Author: Teresa N. Washington Publisher: Oya's Tornado ISBN: Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 369
Book Description
“Blazes a new trail in Africana literary criticism by providing an insight into the soul and spirit of Africana womanhood.” --Anthonia Kalu, The Ohio State University, author of Women, Literature, and Development in Africa This is the revised and expanded edition of Teresa N. Washington's groundbreaking book Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts: Manifestations of Aje in Africana Literature. In Yoruba language and culture, Aje signifies both a phenomenal spiritual power and the human beings who exercise that power. Aje is the birthright of Africana women who are revered as the Gods of Society. While Africana men can have Aje, its owners and controllers are Africana women. Because it is an African female power, and due to its invisibility, ubiquity, and profundity, Aje is often maligned as witchcraft. However, as Teresa N. Washington reveals in Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts, Aje is central to the Yoruba ethos, worldview, and cosmology. Not only is it essential to human creation and artistic creativity, but as a force of justice and retribution, Aje is vital to social harmony and balance. Washington analyzes forms, figures, and forces of Aje in the Yoruba world, in the Caribbean Islands, in Latin America, and in African America. Washington's research reveals that with the exile and enslavement of millions of Africans, Aje became a global force and an essential ally in organizing insurrections, soothing shattered souls, and reminding the dispossessed of their inherent divinity. From her in-depth exploration of Aje in Pan-African history and orature, Washington guides readers through rich analyses of the symbolic, methodological, and spiritual manifestations of Aje that are central to important works by Africana writers but are rarely elucidated by Western criticism. Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts includes innovative readings of works by many Africana writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Ben Okri, Wole Soyinka, Jamaica Kincaid, and Ntozake Shange. This revised and expanded edition of Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts will appeal to scholars of Africana literature, African religion and philosophy, gender studies, and comparative literature. Devotees of Africana spiritual systems will find this book to be indispensable.
Author: LaToya Jefferson-James Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1793606714 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 343
Book Description
New Criticism and Pedagogical Directions for Contemporary Black Women Writers is a collection of critical and pedagogical essays that shed new light on the creative depths of Black women writers. On the one hand, some Black women writers have been heavily anthologized, they have more often than not been restricted by critical metanarratives. Some of their works have been lionized while others remain neglected. On the other hand, some Black women writers have been ignored and understudied. This collection corrects the gaps in our critical thinking about Black women writers by introducing them to a new generation of undergraduate and graduate students, and by presenting pedagogical essays to our colleagues currently working in the field.
Author: Teresa N. Washington Publisher: Oya's Tornado ISBN: Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 417
Book Description
Manifestations of Masculine Magnificence: Divinity in Africana Life, Lyrics, and Literature is a remarkable study and the first of its kind. Teresa N. Washington eschews popular culture’s pimp myths and thug sagas and traces the Africana man’s power, creativity, and consciousness to his inherent divinity. Manifestations of Masculine Magnificence takes the reader to the source of power with an analysis of African Divinities and divine technologies. Washington explores the permanence and proliferation of African Gods from oppressive plantations to the empowering proclamations of such leaders as W. D. Fard, Marcus Garvey, Father Divine, and Allah, the Father. Washington analyzes the summonses to and from the Gods that resonate in the music of such artists as Erykah Badu, The RZA, Sun Ra, X Clan, and Rakim. Using literary analysis as a prism to display the diversity of Africana divinity, Washington reveals the literature of such writers as August Wilson, Walter Mosley, Toni Morrison, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Ishmael Reed to be three-way mirrors that eternally reflect and project the Gods, their myriad powers, and their weighty responsibilities. Manifestations of Masculine Magnificence will prove indispensable to independent scholars as well as scholars of Comparative Literature, Hip Hop Studies, Gender Studies, Africana Studies, Literary Criticism, and Religious Studies.
Author: Teresa N. Washington Publisher: Oya's Tornado ISBN: 0991073088 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 433
Book Description
The African World in Dialogue: An Appeal to Action! is a probing and politically timely collection of essays, interviews, speeches, poetry, short stories, and proposals. These rich works illuminate the struggles, dreams, triumphs, impediments, and diversity of the contemporary African world. The African World in Dialogue contains five sections: "Listen: The Ink Speaks"; "Restitutions, Resolutions, Revolutions"; "Africanity, Education, and Technology"; "Life Lines from the Front Lines"; and "Gender, Power, and Infinite Promise." Each section brims with provocative and compelling insights from elder-warriors, wordsmiths, journalists, and academics, many of whom are also activists. The volume's contributors include Tunde Adegbola, Muhammad Ibn Bashir, Jacqueline Bediako, Charlie Braxton, Alieu Bundu, Baba A. O. Buntu, Chinweizu, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, Oyinlola Longe, Jumbe Kweku Lumumba, Morgan Miller, Asiri Odu, Chinwe Ezinna Oriji, Kevin Powell, Blair Marcus Proctor, Ishola Akindele Salami, Aseret Sin, Teresa N. Washington, and Ayoka Wiles. The book also features interviews with Hilary La Force, Mandingo, Kambale Musavili, and Prince Kuma N’dumbe. With selections designed to critique and in many cases upend conventional political thought, educational norms, fantasies of social progress, and gender myths, The African World in Dialogue challenges its audience. The book’s “Appeal to Action” is literal: Rather than offering eloquent elaborations of African world woes, The African World in Dialogue offers detailed plans and paths for emancipation and elevation that readers are urged to implement. Activists and scholars of African studies, African American studies, Pan-Africanism, criminal justice, Black revolutionary thought and action, gender studies, sociology, and political science will find this book to be both inspirational and indispensable.
Author: Solimar Otero Publisher: SUNY Press ISBN: 143844799X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
Bridges theory, art, and practice to discuss emerging issues in transnational religious movements in Latina/o and African diasporas. 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 fieldsreligious studies, art history, literature, and anthropologyand 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.
Author: Valerie Mason-John Publisher: North Atlantic Books ISBN: 1623175631 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 385
Book Description
A spiritual, political, and interdisciplinary anthology of wisdom stories from Black liberation leaders and teachers. Afrikan Wisdom represents an intersectional, cross-pollinated exploration of Black life--past, present, and future. Award-winning author and editor Valerie Mason-John (Vimalasara)'s collection of 34 essays--written by an eclectic and inspirational group of Black thought leaders and teachers--reflects on the unique and multilayered experience of being Black in the world today. This anthology instills in readers the knowledge, awareness, validation, and spiritual tools necessary to nurture both individual and collective liberation. It is both an inspiration and a motivation for Black readers, as well as anyone else interested in reading about emerging spiritual voices. Topics include: • African and Afro-Diasporan cultures, histories, spiritualities, art, music, and literature • Black radical traditions of liberation and consciousness • Anticolonialism and antislavery • Buddhist philosophy • Social and environmental justice • The prison industrial complex and mass incarceration • (Kemetic) yoga, healing, and mindfulness • Intersections with Indigenous cultures • Addiction and recovery • Transgenerational trauma
Author: Velma E. Love Publisher: Penn State Press ISBN: 0271061456 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 159
Book Description
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.
Author: Donna R. Gabaccia Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 111850822X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 346
Book Description
Gender History Across Epistemologies offers broad range of innovative approaches to gender history. The essays reveal how historians of gender are crossing boundaries - disciplinary, methodological, and national - to explore new opportunities for viewing gender as a category of historical analysis. Essays present epistemological and theoretical debates central in gender history over the past two decades Contributions within this volume to the work on gender history are approached from a wide range of disciplinary locations and approaches The volume demonstrates that recent approaches to gender history suggest surprising crossovers and even the discovery of common grounds
Author: Teresa N. Washington
Author: Teresa N. Washington
Author: LaToya Jefferson-James
Author: Teresa N. Washington
Author: Teresa N. Washington
Author: Solimar Otero
Author: Valerie Mason-John
Author: Velma E. Love
Author: Donna R. Gabaccia
Author: Lorelle D. Semley