Abstract Calling on both theoretical and critical womanist texts and the recent fiction of Jhumpa Lahiri -- her two recent works explored are her novel The Namesake and short story and novella collection Unaccustomed Earth -- this thesis seeks to show how Lahiri both exemplifies and proposes a redefinition of womanism in her work. Lahiri best exemplifies the family-centeredness of Africana womanism, the most thoroughly articulated theory of womanism to date, in her narratives of Bengali- American families, whose members well describe both physical and cultural maternity, a great tenet of womanism as defined by womanism scholars Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi and Clenora Hudson-Weems. However, in questioning both Hudson-Weems and Layli Phillips’ notions of womanism that can be customizable for any culture, I propose a revision and thorough articulation of “Indian” or “Bengali” womanism as explored by Lahiri, adding characteristics such as intergenerational exchange. These articulations lead to greater questions (too large to explore in this thesis) of womanism and of “Indian womanism” which have yet to be explored, but which Lahiri introduces and complicates.

ABSTRACT “SURVIVAL IS NOT AN ACADEMIC SKILL”: EXPLORING HOW AFRICAN AMERICAN FEMALE GRADUATES OF A PRIVATE BOARDING SCHOOL CRAFT AN IDENTITY by Tiffany Simpkins Russell This qualitative study explores the private boarding school experiences of eight African American female graduates, the forms of identity they crafted and the survival skills they developed while navigating this unique terrain. A life history methodology grounded in the womanist tradition was used to develop a portrait of the women’s experiences using their personal narratives as well as integrating my own. Data collection methods included archival research of historical documents related to the private school, Personal History Interview of the primary researcher, Individual Life History interviews of each of the women, and a Group Conversation with the participants. Narrative analysis (Labov, 1997) and Brown and Gilligan’s Listener’s Guide (1992) were used to analyze the women’s narratives and revealed a set of four significant “creative essences.” A “creative essence” is defined as “a proactive, unique, and individual path to inner fulfillment” (Davis, 1998, p. 493). These essences elucidate the survival skills the women employed at various times in their academic careers to cope with sexism, racism, marginalization and invisibility in an injurious environment. The emergent “creative essences” are: 1) Asserting Blackness; 2) Creating Safe Spaces; 3) Finding Voice and Embracing Loudness; 4) Relying on Sistafriends. These “creative essences” are explored in detail using examples from the female respondents’ narratives, the scholarship on African American women’s strength and resilience and African American literature. Implications for educational practice and future research endeavors are discussed.

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African American Baptist churches are not known as bastions of sexual equality. The dominance of males in the pulpit and the conservative and literal interpretation of the Bible often support this idea. African American women, however, were influential in building and expanding the role of the African American church as well as their role within the church, and they remain the greatest percentage of the congregation. African American women, particularly those with a high level of religious commitment, utilize their religious beliefs to construct their ideas of womanhood and those religious beliefs may be shaped by an underlying womanist ideology. This dissertation offers insight into understanding the tension between the perceived sexism in the African American church and women’s continued work in their congregations and utilization of their religious beliefs. Twenty women between the ages of 25 and 55 were encouraged to tell their stories about their experiences with religion in interviews. Each woman’s interview focused on her religious beliefs and church involvement past and present, how her beliefs and activities affected how she felt about herself, and her opinion of women’s influence in the church. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed for perceptions of self, inequality, power and a connection with womanism. In speaking to each woman could be found the tenets of womanism wrestling with conservative religious beliefs. Despite their church’s conservative environment, the participants attributed their positive self-regard to their faith. Strength, independence, leadership, independent thinking and being community minded were attributes these women sought to emulate and pass on to others. While the participants understood themselves to be equal to men and capable of wielding the power of influence, at the same time there is contentment with or tolerance for the current male dominant structure of their church. This is due to a belief in a hierarchical system of control at home and church, referred to as the ‘God-head hierarchy’. God controls all, man answers to God and woman answers to man. The complexity of womanhood shows as they try to negotiate and interpret their religious ideas with their personal experiences.

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This thesis explores the psycho-socio-cultural dynamics that surrounded black womanhood in antebellumGeorgia. The goal is twofold: first, to examine how slave narratives, testimonies, and interviews depicted the plight of enslaved black women through a womanist lens and second, to discover what political and socio-cultural constructions enabled the severe slave institution that was endemic toGeorgia. Womanist theory, psychoanalytic theory, and trauma theory are addressed in this study to focus on antebellum or pre-Civil WarGeorgia.

Thesis advisor: Thomas H. Groome / In the United States and in the American Academy there is a historical reality much like jump rope. In jump rope there is but one rope, in the case of the U.S. there is one white, western, male Christian narrative-a rope that one jumps in on specific way. This can be very difficult for those that do not identify with or know how to jump this particular rope. Theological education has a unique opportunity to be a prophetic voice in advocating for the addition of a womanist rope in order to do Double-Dutch, together, regardless of difference. This rope is one that embraces a womanist consciousness as is advocates for the agency and identity formation of all, the lifting up and accountability of all persons, the freedom of embodiment and expression in all forms, and remains active and critical of injustice and all systems of oppression. Once this rope is added everyone can begin to engage in womanish modes of play that are embodied aesthetic experiences and cultural expressions that function as a means of knowing, being, and making meaning in this world. When all persons do Double-Dutch together play becomes a tool for learning and teaching religious education across differences. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.

Border-Crossing Travels Across Literary Worlds is an autocritographical journey that places a group of U.S. literary texts into critically conscious dialogue with the “text” of my life. As a white, American, middle-class, cishetero, able-bodied man, I historicize, contextualize, analyze, and deconstruct the process by which my ten years of graduate academic studies at the University of South Florida fostered my ongoing awakening to critical consciousness—the personal and political evolution Paolo Freire terms “conscientization.” I present the analytical insights I realized about landmark feminist and womanist texts I encountered during my graduate studies that resonate with the prominent literary works and events from my youth. By identifying personal contexts and identity-aware frameworks for how I read these influential texts in my past, I give concrete examples of how hegemonic systems of gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability operate within such writing. I also demonstrate how utilizing feminist and womanist theoretical lenses allows a scholar to re-vision and recover problematic texts. Across all my autocritographical travels, I imagine my own life experiences, as well as the positionality of my selected texts’ protagonists, in terms of the archetype of the shaman—a liminal, border-crossing person who walks between worlds to function in the capacity as a messenger, intermediary, and balance-bringing healer.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Title from title screen. Layli Phillips, committee chair; Margaret Mills Harper, Carol Marsh-Lockett, committee members. Electronic text (64 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Apr. 20, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-64).