K. Zauditu-Selassie
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813033280
- eISBN:
- 9780813039060
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813033280.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Toni Morrison herself has long urged for organic critical readings of her works. This book delves into African spiritual traditions, explaining the meanings of African cosmology and epistemology as ...
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Toni Morrison herself has long urged for organic critical readings of her works. This book delves into African spiritual traditions, explaining the meanings of African cosmology and epistemology as manifest in Morrison's novels. The result is a critical investigation of such works as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Paradise, Love, Beloved, and Jazz. While others have studied the African spiritual ideas and values encoded in Morrison's work, the author of this study explores a wide range of complex concepts, including African deities, ancestral ideas, spiritual archetypes, mythic trope, and lyrical prose representing African spiritual continuities. She writes this book, not only as a literary critic but also as a practicing Obatala priest in the Yoruba spiritual tradition and a Mama Nganga in the Kongo spiritual system. She analyzes tensions between communal and individual values and moral codes as represented in Morrison's novels. She also uses interviews with and non-fiction written by Morrison to further build her critical paradigm.Less
Toni Morrison herself has long urged for organic critical readings of her works. This book delves into African spiritual traditions, explaining the meanings of African cosmology and epistemology as manifest in Morrison's novels. The result is a critical investigation of such works as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Paradise, Love, Beloved, and Jazz. While others have studied the African spiritual ideas and values encoded in Morrison's work, the author of this study explores a wide range of complex concepts, including African deities, ancestral ideas, spiritual archetypes, mythic trope, and lyrical prose representing African spiritual continuities. She writes this book, not only as a literary critic but also as a practicing Obatala priest in the Yoruba spiritual tradition and a Mama Nganga in the Kongo spiritual system. She analyzes tensions between communal and individual values and moral codes as represented in Morrison's novels. She also uses interviews with and non-fiction written by Morrison to further build her critical paradigm.
Henry John Drewal
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520229488
- eISBN:
- 9780520927292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520229488.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter explores the circumatlantic visual history of African water deity Mami Wata and traces its evolution, contexts, and significances in shaping personal and community identities. It ...
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This chapter explores the circumatlantic visual history of African water deity Mami Wata and traces its evolution, contexts, and significances in shaping personal and community identities. It considers three episodes in the visual history of Mami Wata: a European representation of an exotic other that became implicated in Mami Wata's art history in Africa, case histories of the assemblages of this European image and other alien objects on Mami Wata shrines in Africa, and the representation and transformation of Mami Wata into an African Catholic saint in the Americas. It argues that images are expressions of agency and self-actualization.Less
This chapter explores the circumatlantic visual history of African water deity Mami Wata and traces its evolution, contexts, and significances in shaping personal and community identities. It considers three episodes in the visual history of Mami Wata: a European representation of an exotic other that became implicated in Mami Wata's art history in Africa, case histories of the assemblages of this European image and other alien objects on Mami Wata shrines in Africa, and the representation and transformation of Mami Wata into an African Catholic saint in the Americas. It argues that images are expressions of agency and self-actualization.
