Ismo Dunderberg
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199284962
- eISBN:
- 9780191603785
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199284962.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter argues that the enigmatic ‘disciple Jesus loved’ in John cannot be identified, and that the evidence for his role as the founder and the leader of the Johannine group remains meagre. The ...
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This chapter argues that the enigmatic ‘disciple Jesus loved’ in John cannot be identified, and that the evidence for his role as the founder and the leader of the Johannine group remains meagre. The Beloved Disciple is no doubt an ideal figure in John, but he is not necessarily portrayed as a paradigm of true faith to the audience. Rather, his major function is to authenticate the contents of the Gospel of John. While he is often compared to the Paraclete in John, his figure is more closely connected with that of Jesus. He is one link in the chain of the transmission of divine revelation: the Father supplied the beloved Son with this revelation, and the Beloved Disciple was needed to transmit it to future generations.Less
This chapter argues that the enigmatic ‘disciple Jesus loved’ in John cannot be identified, and that the evidence for his role as the founder and the leader of the Johannine group remains meagre. The Beloved Disciple is no doubt an ideal figure in John, but he is not necessarily portrayed as a paradigm of true faith to the audience. Rather, his major function is to authenticate the contents of the Gospel of John. While he is often compared to the Paraclete in John, his figure is more closely connected with that of Jesus. He is one link in the chain of the transmission of divine revelation: the Father supplied the beloved Son with this revelation, and the Beloved Disciple was needed to transmit it to future generations.
Ismo Dunderberg
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199284962
- eISBN:
- 9780191603785
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199284962.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter shows that there is neither a sufficient basis for the identification of the Beloved Disciple with Thomas, nor for the theory that the Syrian Judas Thomas tradition had some impact on ...
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This chapter shows that there is neither a sufficient basis for the identification of the Beloved Disciple with Thomas, nor for the theory that the Syrian Judas Thomas tradition had some impact on how this disciple is described in John. A clear difference between the Johannine Beloved Disciple and the picture of Thomas drawn in the Gospel of Thomas is delineated. Unlike the latter, the Beloved Disciple is not described in terms of his better understanding or having access to the secret teaching of Jesus.Less
This chapter shows that there is neither a sufficient basis for the identification of the Beloved Disciple with Thomas, nor for the theory that the Syrian Judas Thomas tradition had some impact on how this disciple is described in John. A clear difference between the Johannine Beloved Disciple and the picture of Thomas drawn in the Gospel of Thomas is delineated. Unlike the latter, the Beloved Disciple is not described in terms of his better understanding or having access to the secret teaching of Jesus.
Ismo Dunderberg
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199284962
- eISBN:
- 9780191603785
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199284962.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter offers a summary of results and a brief reflection on how scholars’ reading of the Gospel of John is affected by the fact that it is included in the NT canon. This fact explains why ...
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This chapter offers a summary of results and a brief reflection on how scholars’ reading of the Gospel of John is affected by the fact that it is included in the NT canon. This fact explains why there is a need to bring John and Thomas closer to each other than they really are. This fact also generates new theories as to the identity of the Beloved Disciple and his role in the Johannine community.Less
This chapter offers a summary of results and a brief reflection on how scholars’ reading of the Gospel of John is affected by the fact that it is included in the NT canon. This fact explains why there is a need to bring John and Thomas closer to each other than they really are. This fact also generates new theories as to the identity of the Beloved Disciple and his role in the Johannine community.
Josiah Royce
Scott L. Pratt and Shannon Sullivan (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823231324
- eISBN:
- 9780823235568
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823231324.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
In 1908, American philosopher Josiah Royce foresaw the future. Race questions and prejudices, he said, “promise to become, in the near future, still more important than they have ever ...
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In 1908, American philosopher Josiah Royce foresaw the future. Race questions and prejudices, he said, “promise to become, in the near future, still more important than they have ever been before”. Royce recognized that the problem of the next century would be, as W.E.B. Du Bois put it, “the problem of the color line”. The twentieth century saw vast changes in race relations, but even after the election of the first African-American U.S. president, questions of race and the nature of community persist. Royce's work provided the conceptual starting place for the Cultural Pluralism movement of the 1920s and 1930s, and his notion of the Beloved Community influenced the work and vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement. Communities, whether they are understood as racial or geographic, religious or scientific, Royce argued, are formed by the commitments of individuals to causes or shared ideals. This starting point—the philosophy of loyalty—provides a means to understand the nature of communities, their conflicts, and their potential for growth and coexistence. This volume also includes six supplementary essays by Royce that raise questions about his views and show the potential of those views to inform other discussions about religious pluralism, the philosophy of science, the role of history, and the future of the American community.Less
In 1908, American philosopher Josiah Royce foresaw the future. Race questions and prejudices, he said, “promise to become, in the near future, still more important than they have ever been before”. Royce recognized that the problem of the next century would be, as W.E.B. Du Bois put it, “the problem of the color line”. The twentieth century saw vast changes in race relations, but even after the election of the first African-American U.S. president, questions of race and the nature of community persist. Royce's work provided the conceptual starting place for the Cultural Pluralism movement of the 1920s and 1930s, and his notion of the Beloved Community influenced the work and vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement. Communities, whether they are understood as racial or geographic, religious or scientific, Royce argued, are formed by the commitments of individuals to causes or shared ideals. This starting point—the philosophy of loyalty—provides a means to understand the nature of communities, their conflicts, and their potential for growth and coexistence. This volume also includes six supplementary essays by Royce that raise questions about his views and show the potential of those views to inform other discussions about religious pluralism, the philosophy of science, the role of history, and the future of the American community.
Christine E. Hallett
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781784992521
- eISBN:
- 9781526104342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992521.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
American millionaire, Mary Borden, established three field hospitals in the French lines during the First World War. The first of these, L’Hopital Chirurgical Mobile No. 1, was both an effective ...
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American millionaire, Mary Borden, established three field hospitals in the French lines during the First World War. The first of these, L’Hopital Chirurgical Mobile No. 1, was both an effective military hospital and a cauldron of literary creativity. Although Borden’s contribution is well-documented, that of her head nurse, Agnes Warner, is less well-known. Warner’s book, My Beloved Poilus, was well-received in her home-province, New Brunswick, Canada, but has, until now, received very little attention from historians.Less
American millionaire, Mary Borden, established three field hospitals in the French lines during the First World War. The first of these, L’Hopital Chirurgical Mobile No. 1, was both an effective military hospital and a cauldron of literary creativity. Although Borden’s contribution is well-documented, that of her head nurse, Agnes Warner, is less well-known. Warner’s book, My Beloved Poilus, was well-received in her home-province, New Brunswick, Canada, but has, until now, received very little attention from historians.
Anissa Janine Wardi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037455
- eISBN:
- 9780813042343
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037455.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter reads rivers as a synecdoche of the nation. Historically, rivers were both arteries of the slave trade and conduits to freedom, as their surrounding geographies determined such ...
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This chapter reads rivers as a synecdoche of the nation. Historically, rivers were both arteries of the slave trade and conduits to freedom, as their surrounding geographies determined such conditions. While danger is part of the larger conceptualization of the rivers, the catharsis provided by these rushing waters is unmistakable. Thus, the chapter examines the sanctuary that the Ohio and the Mississippi offer, identifying rivers as spaces of absolution and spiritual healing. Particular focus is placed on Toni Morrison's Beloved and Henry Dumas' “Ark of Bones,” as the Atlantic Ocean morphs into the rivers Mississippi and Ohio.Less
This chapter reads rivers as a synecdoche of the nation. Historically, rivers were both arteries of the slave trade and conduits to freedom, as their surrounding geographies determined such conditions. While danger is part of the larger conceptualization of the rivers, the catharsis provided by these rushing waters is unmistakable. Thus, the chapter examines the sanctuary that the Ohio and the Mississippi offer, identifying rivers as spaces of absolution and spiritual healing. Particular focus is placed on Toni Morrison's Beloved and Henry Dumas' “Ark of Bones,” as the Atlantic Ocean morphs into the rivers Mississippi and Ohio.
Dwayne A. Tunstall
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230549
- eISBN:
- 9780823235919
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230549.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter addresses Howison's critique of Royce's idealistic metaphysics. It looks at the significance of the will to interpret for the constitution of human personhood ...
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This chapter addresses Howison's critique of Royce's idealistic metaphysics. It looks at the significance of the will to interpret for the constitution of human personhood and that of the divine Self, as well as how Royce's late conception of human personhood. It holds that a divine person is the one who “inspires, guides, and empowers” human persons to live lives in accord with the ideal of the Beloved Community. The chapter continues the interpretative task by examining the significance of Royce's ethico-religious insight in his The Problem of Christianity and his Extension Course on Ethics. The chapter ends with a comparison of Howison's personal idealism and Royce's idealistic metaphysics, showing that by 1915 Royce's metaphysics of community became very similar to Howison's personal idealism.Less
This chapter addresses Howison's critique of Royce's idealistic metaphysics. It looks at the significance of the will to interpret for the constitution of human personhood and that of the divine Self, as well as how Royce's late conception of human personhood. It holds that a divine person is the one who “inspires, guides, and empowers” human persons to live lives in accord with the ideal of the Beloved Community. The chapter continues the interpretative task by examining the significance of Royce's ethico-religious insight in his The Problem of Christianity and his Extension Course on Ethics. The chapter ends with a comparison of Howison's personal idealism and Royce's idealistic metaphysics, showing that by 1915 Royce's metaphysics of community became very similar to Howison's personal idealism.
Dwayne A. Tunstall
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230549
- eISBN:
- 9780823235919
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230549.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter compares Martin Luther King, Jr.'s philosophical theology, specifically his notions of the Beloved Community and agape, with Josiah Royce's metaphysics of ...
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This chapter compares Martin Luther King, Jr.'s philosophical theology, specifically his notions of the Beloved Community and agape, with Josiah Royce's metaphysics of community and its notion of the Beloved Community. It suggests how King's personalism, specifically his notion of the Beloved Community, could be strengthened by placing these notions in a Roycean metaphysical framework. It also suggests how King's philosophical nonviolence could serve as a more fertile ground for Royce's ethics and metaphysics of community than Royce's own later social and political positions, specifically his pro-World War I stance.Less
This chapter compares Martin Luther King, Jr.'s philosophical theology, specifically his notions of the Beloved Community and agape, with Josiah Royce's metaphysics of community and its notion of the Beloved Community. It suggests how King's personalism, specifically his notion of the Beloved Community, could be strengthened by placing these notions in a Roycean metaphysical framework. It also suggests how King's philosophical nonviolence could serve as a more fertile ground for Royce's ethics and metaphysics of community than Royce's own later social and political positions, specifically his pro-World War I stance.
Joanne Lipson Freed
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501713767
- eISBN:
- 9781501713828
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501713767.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Chapter 1 offers a foundational reading of two contemporary works in which literal, embodied ghosts or specters intrude into and transform the terrain of traditional literary realism: Toni Morrison’s ...
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Chapter 1 offers a foundational reading of two contemporary works in which literal, embodied ghosts or specters intrude into and transform the terrain of traditional literary realism: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Mahasweta Devi’s novella, “Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha.” By introducing embodied ghosts into otherwise realistically rendered fictional landscapes, these works intentionally disrupt the familiar narrative protocols that allow them to be made meaningful—both those which insist on the mimetic realness of the supernatural events they depict, and those which invite us to read those events metaphorically. But by staging exorcisms, which banish the supernatural and allow characters like Puran, Sethe, and Denver to re-join the communities from which they had estranged themselves, these works also acknowledge the necessity of compromise: although something is inevitably lost when Beloved and “Pterodactyl” are placed into interpretive circulation, something important is gained as well.Less
Chapter 1 offers a foundational reading of two contemporary works in which literal, embodied ghosts or specters intrude into and transform the terrain of traditional literary realism: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Mahasweta Devi’s novella, “Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha.” By introducing embodied ghosts into otherwise realistically rendered fictional landscapes, these works intentionally disrupt the familiar narrative protocols that allow them to be made meaningful—both those which insist on the mimetic realness of the supernatural events they depict, and those which invite us to read those events metaphorically. But by staging exorcisms, which banish the supernatural and allow characters like Puran, Sethe, and Denver to re-join the communities from which they had estranged themselves, these works also acknowledge the necessity of compromise: although something is inevitably lost when Beloved and “Pterodactyl” are placed into interpretive circulation, something important is gained as well.
Simone C. Drake
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226363837
- eISBN:
- 9780226364025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226364025.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
Privileging imagination and creativity, this chapter is composed of vignettes that consider the complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship between crisis, vulnerability, and empowerment. It ...
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Privileging imagination and creativity, this chapter is composed of vignettes that consider the complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship between crisis, vulnerability, and empowerment. It begins with Toni Morrison’s Beloved as a theoretical framework for seeing what imagining grace looks like and demonstrating how black feminist theory provides important tools for seeing power in vulnerability and emotiveness. President Obama’s appearance on the cover of Ms. and his accompanying feminist declaration, social commentary on Tom Joyner’s radio show, Donald McKayle’s dance performance “Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder,” Richard Pryor’s comedy, Presidential initiated social policy, and the visual art of Kehinde Wiley all work together to illustrate how the author both employs and negotiates the challenges of synthesizing black feminist and black masculinity studies. Read together, these vignettes lay out the stakes for critical black gender studies, as well as the complicated nature of constructing complex masculine identities in an era dominated by dialogues of crisis. While vulnerability and emotiveness is privileged in this chapter, the chapter also considers how what Mark Anthony Neal references as illegible masculinities—those expressing vulnerability in this case—are not always a progressive performance that fosters self-actualization and resistance to crisis metaphors.Less
Privileging imagination and creativity, this chapter is composed of vignettes that consider the complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship between crisis, vulnerability, and empowerment. It begins with Toni Morrison’s Beloved as a theoretical framework for seeing what imagining grace looks like and demonstrating how black feminist theory provides important tools for seeing power in vulnerability and emotiveness. President Obama’s appearance on the cover of Ms. and his accompanying feminist declaration, social commentary on Tom Joyner’s radio show, Donald McKayle’s dance performance “Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder,” Richard Pryor’s comedy, Presidential initiated social policy, and the visual art of Kehinde Wiley all work together to illustrate how the author both employs and negotiates the challenges of synthesizing black feminist and black masculinity studies. Read together, these vignettes lay out the stakes for critical black gender studies, as well as the complicated nature of constructing complex masculine identities in an era dominated by dialogues of crisis. While vulnerability and emotiveness is privileged in this chapter, the chapter also considers how what Mark Anthony Neal references as illegible masculinities—those expressing vulnerability in this case—are not always a progressive performance that fosters self-actualization and resistance to crisis metaphors.
Bruce B. Lawrence
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469620039
- eISBN:
- 9781469623276
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469620039.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter discusses the practice of remembering Allah. If the ordinary believer asks for guidance through prayer and invoking Allah's name, the devout Sufi seeks to access the One beyond and ...
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This chapter discusses the practice of remembering Allah. If the ordinary believer asks for guidance through prayer and invoking Allah's name, the devout Sufi seeks to access the One beyond and before all that is, or ever will be, through remembrance. Remembrance is an intense, unending pursuit of the deepest interior connection with Allah. Sufi masters have traveled the perilous path (tariqa)—through poetry and prose, music and dance, with dieting and fasting—to find the Divine Beloved. The psychological reflex of remembrance is so varied, intense, and persistent that it anticipates the insight of the father of modern psychology, William James, for whom belief in God was less important than how one felt about belief in God.Less
This chapter discusses the practice of remembering Allah. If the ordinary believer asks for guidance through prayer and invoking Allah's name, the devout Sufi seeks to access the One beyond and before all that is, or ever will be, through remembrance. Remembrance is an intense, unending pursuit of the deepest interior connection with Allah. Sufi masters have traveled the perilous path (tariqa)—through poetry and prose, music and dance, with dieting and fasting—to find the Divine Beloved. The psychological reflex of remembrance is so varied, intense, and persistent that it anticipates the insight of the father of modern psychology, William James, for whom belief in God was less important than how one felt about belief in God.
Lovalerie King
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781628460193
- eISBN:
- 9781626740419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628460193.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
King’s essay reads Beloved as part of a collective intertext by which African American cultural production provides African America’s perspective on racialized discourse and practice throughout ...
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King’s essay reads Beloved as part of a collective intertext by which African American cultural production provides African America’s perspective on racialized discourse and practice throughout American History, particularly as it relates rights, protections, and privileges associated with citizenship, and more specifically with the relationship between American identity and property. The conflict between property rights and human rights is intrinsic to the American experience and its history of racialized slavery. Legal scholars and historians have shown that under slavery, law and custom worked in tandem to advance the notion of white supremacy, to cultivate the relationship between whiteness and property, and to secure for property–owning white Americans all the rights, privileges, and protections of citizenship that were simultaneously denied to enslaved Blacks. With Beloved, Toni Morrison illustrates some profound implications of such a legal system, acknowledging the larger philosophical and psychological considerations of being that the acquisition of material property cannot resolve. (153 words)Less
King’s essay reads Beloved as part of a collective intertext by which African American cultural production provides African America’s perspective on racialized discourse and practice throughout American History, particularly as it relates rights, protections, and privileges associated with citizenship, and more specifically with the relationship between American identity and property. The conflict between property rights and human rights is intrinsic to the American experience and its history of racialized slavery. Legal scholars and historians have shown that under slavery, law and custom worked in tandem to advance the notion of white supremacy, to cultivate the relationship between whiteness and property, and to secure for property–owning white Americans all the rights, privileges, and protections of citizenship that were simultaneously denied to enslaved Blacks. With Beloved, Toni Morrison illustrates some profound implications of such a legal system, acknowledging the larger philosophical and psychological considerations of being that the acquisition of material property cannot resolve. (153 words)
Tuire Valkeakari
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813062471
- eISBN:
- 9780813051963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813062471.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter examines Caryl Phillips’s, Cecil Foster’s, and Edwidge Danticat’s depictions of contemporary African Caribbean encounters with the United States and Canada, with a particular focus on ...
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This chapter examines Caryl Phillips’s, Cecil Foster’s, and Edwidge Danticat’s depictions of contemporary African Caribbean encounters with the United States and Canada, with a particular focus on the complexities of “return”—a theme that facilitates discussions about “origins” and “home” and about formations of both diasporic and national identities and solidarities. A State of Independence (Phillips), Sleep on, Beloved (Foster), and Breath, Eyes, Memory (Danticat) all depict black Caribbean-born diasporans’ return trips back to the Caribbean. In all their complexity, these visits and their existential consequences play a pivotal role in how Phillips’s, Foster’s, and Danticat’s protagonists interpret their pasts and envision their future identities as members of their families, of two nations, of the Caribbean diaspora, and of the African diaspora.Less
This chapter examines Caryl Phillips’s, Cecil Foster’s, and Edwidge Danticat’s depictions of contemporary African Caribbean encounters with the United States and Canada, with a particular focus on the complexities of “return”—a theme that facilitates discussions about “origins” and “home” and about formations of both diasporic and national identities and solidarities. A State of Independence (Phillips), Sleep on, Beloved (Foster), and Breath, Eyes, Memory (Danticat) all depict black Caribbean-born diasporans’ return trips back to the Caribbean. In all their complexity, these visits and their existential consequences play a pivotal role in how Phillips’s, Foster’s, and Danticat’s protagonists interpret their pasts and envision their future identities as members of their families, of two nations, of the Caribbean diaspora, and of the African diaspora.
Sandy Alexandre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036651
- eISBN:
- 9781621030423
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036651.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book focuses on two connected issues: representations of lynching in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American photographs, poetry, and fiction; and those representations’ effects. It shows ...
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This book focuses on two connected issues: representations of lynching in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American photographs, poetry, and fiction; and those representations’ effects. It shows how putting representations of lynching in dialogue with the history of lynching uncovers the profound investment of African American literature—as an enterprise that continually seeks to create conceptual spaces for the disenfranchised culture it represents—in matters of property and territory. Through studies ranging from lynching photographs to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, the book demonstrates how representations of lynching demand that we engage and discuss various forms of possession and dispossession. The multiple meanings of the word “representation” are familiar to literary critics, but the book insists that its other key term, “effects,” also needs to be understood in both of its primary senses. On the one hand, it indicates the social and cultural repercussions of how lynching was portrayed—what effects its representations had. On the other hand, the word signals, too, the possessions or what might be called the personal effects conjured up by these representations. These possessions were not only material—as for example property in land or the things one owned. The effects of representation also included diverse, less tangible but no less real possessions shared by individuals and groups: the aura of a lynching site, the ideological construction of white womanhood, or the seemingly default capacity of lynching iconography to encapsulate the history of ostensibly all forms of violence against black people.Less
This book focuses on two connected issues: representations of lynching in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century American photographs, poetry, and fiction; and those representations’ effects. It shows how putting representations of lynching in dialogue with the history of lynching uncovers the profound investment of African American literature—as an enterprise that continually seeks to create conceptual spaces for the disenfranchised culture it represents—in matters of property and territory. Through studies ranging from lynching photographs to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, the book demonstrates how representations of lynching demand that we engage and discuss various forms of possession and dispossession. The multiple meanings of the word “representation” are familiar to literary critics, but the book insists that its other key term, “effects,” also needs to be understood in both of its primary senses. On the one hand, it indicates the social and cultural repercussions of how lynching was portrayed—what effects its representations had. On the other hand, the word signals, too, the possessions or what might be called the personal effects conjured up by these representations. These possessions were not only material—as for example property in land or the things one owned. The effects of representation also included diverse, less tangible but no less real possessions shared by individuals and groups: the aura of a lynching site, the ideological construction of white womanhood, or the seemingly default capacity of lynching iconography to encapsulate the history of ostensibly all forms of violence against black people.
W. Jason Miller
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780813060446
- eISBN:
- 9780813050713
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813060446.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter documents King’s most visible engagements with Langston Hughes’s poem “I Dream a World.” This engagement reveals how King internalized and then rewrote Hughes’s dream in a series of ...
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This chapter documents King’s most visible engagements with Langston Hughes’s poem “I Dream a World.” This engagement reveals how King internalized and then rewrote Hughes’s dream in a series of speeches delivered in 1956. King’s speeches from this era reveal his complex rhetorical use of anaphora and chiasmus. The poem is of great significance as it is linked to King’s first enunciation of the Beloved Community, and this connection is discussed within the framework of a long and rich tradition of scholarship that has established this principal as being so central to King’s vision of an integrated world. The long history of the poem itself is documented from its composition through various appearances in print including its central role in the opera Troubled Island with music composed by William Grant Still.Less
This chapter documents King’s most visible engagements with Langston Hughes’s poem “I Dream a World.” This engagement reveals how King internalized and then rewrote Hughes’s dream in a series of speeches delivered in 1956. King’s speeches from this era reveal his complex rhetorical use of anaphora and chiasmus. The poem is of great significance as it is linked to King’s first enunciation of the Beloved Community, and this connection is discussed within the framework of a long and rich tradition of scholarship that has established this principal as being so central to King’s vision of an integrated world. The long history of the poem itself is documented from its composition through various appearances in print including its central role in the opera Troubled Island with music composed by William Grant Still.
Ann Hostetler
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781628460193
- eISBN:
- 9781626740419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628460193.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This essay explores the trope of the dead girl as the space of “unbeing” in Morrison’s historical “trilogy”—Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise—and argues for the importance of the dead girl as an accessory ...
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This essay explores the trope of the dead girl as the space of “unbeing” in Morrison’s historical “trilogy”—Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise—and argues for the importance of the dead girl as an accessory to refiguring history in Morrison’s fiction. As history is encoded in the fictional narrative, the image of a dead girl or remnant woman seeks to disrupt it, pushing the reader’s imagination beyond the edge of the narrative paradigm. By exploring the dead girls in her texts, it is possible to trace the different approaches Morrison’s novels take towards embodying history, especially in her historical novels. While the characters and stories in this trilogy are only tangentially related, the narrative obsession with healing the ruptures of historical discontinuity deeply connects them. In particular, the dead girls of Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise cause readers to question the limits of Modernist and Postmodernist paradigms of the past. (149 words)Less
This essay explores the trope of the dead girl as the space of “unbeing” in Morrison’s historical “trilogy”—Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise—and argues for the importance of the dead girl as an accessory to refiguring history in Morrison’s fiction. As history is encoded in the fictional narrative, the image of a dead girl or remnant woman seeks to disrupt it, pushing the reader’s imagination beyond the edge of the narrative paradigm. By exploring the dead girls in her texts, it is possible to trace the different approaches Morrison’s novels take towards embodying history, especially in her historical novels. While the characters and stories in this trilogy are only tangentially related, the narrative obsession with healing the ruptures of historical discontinuity deeply connects them. In particular, the dead girls of Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise cause readers to question the limits of Modernist and Postmodernist paradigms of the past. (149 words)
Claudine Raynaud
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781628460193
- eISBN:
- 9781626740419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628460193.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Using a psychoanalytic framework and an artful deployment of Morrison’s essay, “The Site of Memory,” Claudine Raynaud draws on memory as “the return of the repressed” in Beloved. She argues that the ...
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Using a psychoanalytic framework and an artful deployment of Morrison’s essay, “The Site of Memory,” Claudine Raynaud draws on memory as “the return of the repressed” in Beloved. She argues that the staging of the workings of memory is akin to phantasm and that Morrison’s “rememory” can be read as a “the narrative of a fable”—or “fabulation”—that figures the return of the repressed Whether bumping into to a rememory that belongs to someone else, or the haunting of a house by a phantasm that re-presents the traumatic (or catatonic) memory of the infanticide, Raynaud links the “geological metaphor” (of literary archeology) of a spatially-oriented “myth of memory” to “the metaphoric process at work in Black American literature.” In a third movement that concentrates on the color of memory, she shows how repression is described as a mise en abyme of remembering: Sethe cannot remember the workings of memory. (140 words)Less
Using a psychoanalytic framework and an artful deployment of Morrison’s essay, “The Site of Memory,” Claudine Raynaud draws on memory as “the return of the repressed” in Beloved. She argues that the staging of the workings of memory is akin to phantasm and that Morrison’s “rememory” can be read as a “the narrative of a fable”—or “fabulation”—that figures the return of the repressed Whether bumping into to a rememory that belongs to someone else, or the haunting of a house by a phantasm that re-presents the traumatic (or catatonic) memory of the infanticide, Raynaud links the “geological metaphor” (of literary archeology) of a spatially-oriented “myth of memory” to “the metaphoric process at work in Black American literature.” In a third movement that concentrates on the color of memory, she shows how repression is described as a mise en abyme of remembering: Sethe cannot remember the workings of memory. (140 words)
Shirley A. Stave
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781628460193
- eISBN:
- 9781626740419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628460193.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
In her trilogy Morrison develops a sustained critique of Christianity and explores alternative theologies more capable of providing wounded souls the healing and refuge they require. In Beloved, ...
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In her trilogy Morrison develops a sustained critique of Christianity and explores alternative theologies more capable of providing wounded souls the healing and refuge they require. In Beloved, Morrison enables a critique of the Judeo-Christian God as a divine father. Through Baby Suggs the text’s critique of Christianity is most evident in her manifestation of a theology fundamentally at odds with mainstream Christianity’s denigration of the body. In Jazz, Morrison’s critique appears through her construction of the unnamed narrator, admitting an inability to understand the characters s/he had created. The narrator’s further revelations provide a startling critique of the Judeo-Christian God. In Paradise, the focus shifts from God the Father to God(dess), the Consoling Mother, Consolata, who helps broken women to integrate body and spirit. The healing derives from rituals that enable a dissolution of the boundaries of the individual and an acceptance of self as whole. (147 words)Less
In her trilogy Morrison develops a sustained critique of Christianity and explores alternative theologies more capable of providing wounded souls the healing and refuge they require. In Beloved, Morrison enables a critique of the Judeo-Christian God as a divine father. Through Baby Suggs the text’s critique of Christianity is most evident in her manifestation of a theology fundamentally at odds with mainstream Christianity’s denigration of the body. In Jazz, Morrison’s critique appears through her construction of the unnamed narrator, admitting an inability to understand the characters s/he had created. The narrator’s further revelations provide a startling critique of the Judeo-Christian God. In Paradise, the focus shifts from God the Father to God(dess), the Consoling Mother, Consolata, who helps broken women to integrate body and spirit. The healing derives from rituals that enable a dissolution of the boundaries of the individual and an acceptance of self as whole. (147 words)
Erin Michael Salius
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813056890
- eISBN:
- 9780813053677
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056890.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Chapter 1 considers two novels by Toni Morrison which are widely celebrated for undermining Enlightenment rationalism: Beloved and A Mercy. As critics often note, Morrison’s concept of rememory—an ...
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Chapter 1 considers two novels by Toni Morrison which are widely celebrated for undermining Enlightenment rationalism: Beloved and A Mercy. As critics often note, Morrison’s concept of rememory—an antirealist trope, premised on the supernatural irruption of the past in the present—achieves this by imagining an alternative history of slavery. Yet a complete picture of these novels requires an account of the way that Morrison structures rememory—quite remarkably and with palpable historical reservations—as a Catholic sacrament. The chapter therefore addresses a significant gap in scholarship on Morrison (who identifies as Catholic), but never does it imply that her religious vision is uncritical or pure. Rather, it suggests that the sacramental aspects of rememory are in constant tension with the sharp critique of Catholicism evident in both novels. That critique builds upon the sociological study of slave religion that Orlando Patterson developed in Slavery and Social Death, particularly his pioneering claim that “the special version of Protestantism” which arose in the American South as slave religion was, in key respects, theologically “identical” to Catholicism.Less
Chapter 1 considers two novels by Toni Morrison which are widely celebrated for undermining Enlightenment rationalism: Beloved and A Mercy. As critics often note, Morrison’s concept of rememory—an antirealist trope, premised on the supernatural irruption of the past in the present—achieves this by imagining an alternative history of slavery. Yet a complete picture of these novels requires an account of the way that Morrison structures rememory—quite remarkably and with palpable historical reservations—as a Catholic sacrament. The chapter therefore addresses a significant gap in scholarship on Morrison (who identifies as Catholic), but never does it imply that her religious vision is uncritical or pure. Rather, it suggests that the sacramental aspects of rememory are in constant tension with the sharp critique of Catholicism evident in both novels. That critique builds upon the sociological study of slave religion that Orlando Patterson developed in Slavery and Social Death, particularly his pioneering claim that “the special version of Protestantism” which arose in the American South as slave religion was, in key respects, theologically “identical” to Catholicism.
Joe Street
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041513
- eISBN:
- 9780813043883
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041513.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter by Joe Street traces the development of SNCC's concept of community, placing particular emphasis on the transition that occurred between the conclusion of the Mississippi Summer Project ...
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This chapter by Joe Street traces the development of SNCC's concept of community, placing particular emphasis on the transition that occurred between the conclusion of the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964 and the expulsion of whites from the organization in 1967. The influx of new activists with fewer emotional and personal bonds to SNCC's original character transformed its biracial ideal of the “beloved community” into a concept more in tune with Benedict Anderson's notion of an “imagined community,” which gave expression to its long-standing ambivalence about integration. Rejecting the orthodoxy that interprets SNCC's development in terms of its decline as a redemptive organization, this suggests instead that its evolution was logical and understandable in relation to its shifting notion of community.Less
This chapter by Joe Street traces the development of SNCC's concept of community, placing particular emphasis on the transition that occurred between the conclusion of the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964 and the expulsion of whites from the organization in 1967. The influx of new activists with fewer emotional and personal bonds to SNCC's original character transformed its biracial ideal of the “beloved community” into a concept more in tune with Benedict Anderson's notion of an “imagined community,” which gave expression to its long-standing ambivalence about integration. Rejecting the orthodoxy that interprets SNCC's development in terms of its decline as a redemptive organization, this suggests instead that its evolution was logical and understandable in relation to its shifting notion of community.
