Black Women's Literature of the Americas

Griots and Goddesses
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-032-06716-2
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 374 g

Reihe: Routledge African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies

Drawing on a range of historical and literary texts, this book examines how Black women under the yoke of slavery negotiated their sense of belonging and spirituality from a liminal position, stuck between a new life in the Americas, and their connections to their African ancestral roots and a wider diasporic community.

The book investigates how Black women in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, the United States, and Brazil turned to their spiritual beliefs as a tool of resilience and resistance. These “griots” and “goddesses” are forced to negotiate complex issues such as race, gender, identity, maternity, sexuality, and belonging, from a liminal position that looks to both settle roots in a foreign land, and stay connected to ancestors and the Sacred. As these Black female protagonists turn to (re)memory and ancestral knowledge to map their connection with the Divine, they become mediators of worlds, and hybrid griots surpassing temporal and geographical boundaries.

With important reflections on Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa’s Daughters of the Stone, and Ana Maria Gonçalves’s Um Defeito de Cor, amongst other texts, this book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of comparative literature, religious studies, gender studies, and African diaspora studies.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wind, Tonia Leigh

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Romanische Literaturen Lateinamerikanische Literaturen, Spanische Literatur außerhalb Europas
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. INTRODUCTION. 2. EMBARKATIONS AND DISEMBARKATIONS: THE VOICES OF THE ORISHAS IN THE AMERICAS. 3. YEMANJA AND OSHUN: AFRICAN GODDESSES IN DIALOGUE WITH THE AMERICAS. 4. MEMORY AND (RE)MEMORY IN WORKS OF BLACK WOMEN WRITERS. 5. MAPPING THE DIVINE IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA. 6. GODDESSES: MEDIUMS OF WORLDS. 7. GRIOTS: GUARDIANS OF UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE. 8. NEGOTIATING GENDER AND MATERNITY UNDER THE YOKE OF SLAVERY. 9. MANIFESTATIONS OF SEXUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY: A LITERARY PERSPECTIVE. 10. CONCLUSIONS.

Über Autor(innen)

Tonia Leigh Wind completed her PhD at the University of Georgia, USA and is currently a Teaching Associate of Portuguese at the University of Nottingham in the UK.