This project examines contemporary African American womens literature and the legacy established by literary foremother, Zora Neale Hurston. The discussion is positioned at the cross-section of three on-going conversations: 1) current discourses on Conjure in African American womens literature, 2) analyses of Africanisms in black culture, and 3) previous scholarship on recurring topics in African American womens writing. Here these frames are unified under one thematic: Christio-Conjurea rubric borne of the trans-Atlantic slave trade that designates the fusing of Christian and West African religious tradition in African American culture. Thus, this project establishes a new literary matrix for analyzing twentieth-century black womens writing.
Each chapter features a novel viewed through the critical lens of Christio-Conjure. Zora Neale Hurstons and Luisah Teishs research offers a framework for the elements of Christio-Conjure integrated throughout the novels. Chapter two, Christio-Conjure as Historical Fiction, analyzes Jewel Parker Rhodess Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau (1993), a work that provides a compelling image of the black woman as a Christio-Conjure priestess. Chapter three, Christio-Conjure and the Ghost Story, examines how Tina McElroy Ansas Baby of the Family (1988) incorporates the Christio-Conjure tenet of matrilineage with the cultural transmission of mother wit as African American folk wisdom. Chapter four, Revolutionary Christio-Conjure, addresses the revolutionary aspects of Toni Cade Bambaras The Salt Eaters (1980), highlighting African American communal transformation and afrofemcentric female bonding. Chapter five, Christio-Conjure Activism, examines Ntozake Shanges Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982) with the title characters as proverbial soul sistahs who employ Christio-Conjure in self-actualization and communal healing. Chapter six, Christio-Conjure Romance and Magic, discusses the love story of Cocoa and George against the backdrop of Gloria Naylors revision of the holy trinity in Mama Day (1989). As liberation tales, these novels depict characters that appropriate Christio-Conjure as a source of empowerment. In addition, the authors themselves employ Christio-Conjure in their writing as a reaffirmation of their cultural and literary heritage. As a focal point, then, Christio-Conjure functions as a centering mechanism in contemporary twentieth-century black womens writing, a body of literature historically marginalized.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-0414102-144220 |
| Date | 16 April 2002 |
| Creators | Haynes, Laura Sams |
| Contributors | Angeletta Gourdine, James Olney, John Lowe, Robin Roberts, Nat Wing |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0414102-144220/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University Libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. |
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