Speaking in tongues and dancing diaspora : black women writing and performing
Henderson, MaeAuthor
Deploying the trope of 'speaking in tongues' to theorise the multivocality of black women's writing, based on the reconstruction of a fundamentally spiritual practice as critical concept, Mae G. Henderson also enlists a second trope, 'dancing diaspora', to theorise the narrativity of black women's dance, based on the notions of 'performing testimony' and 'critical witnessing'. Together, these tropes are meant to signify a tradition of black women writing and performing, a tradition privileging the pre-eminence of voice and narration, along with the roles of listening and witnessing.
Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Deploying the trope of 'speaking in tongues' to theorise the multivocality of black women's writing, based on the reconstruction of a fundamentally spiritual practice as critical concept, Mae G. Henderson also enlists a second trope, 'dancing diaspora', to theorise the narrativity of black women's dance, based on the notions of 'performing testimony' and 'critical witnessing'. Together, these tropes are meant to signify a tradition of black women writing and performing, a tradition privileging the pre-eminence of voice and narration, along with the roles of listening and witnessing.
Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on July 8, 2014).
Introduction -- Alice Walker's The color purple: revisions and redefinitions -- (W)riting the work and working the rites -- Speaking in tongues: dialectics, dialogics, and the black woman writer's literary tradition -- Toni Morrison's Beloved: re-membering the body as historical text -- The stories of (O)Dessa: stories of complicity and resistance -- "Seen but not heard": a poetics of Afro-American women's writing -- Gayl Jones's White rat: speaking silence/silencing speech -- State of the art: black feminist theory -- What it means to teach the other when the other is the self -- Authors and authorities. Nella Larsen's  Passing: passing, performance, and (post)modernism -- Josephine Baker and La revue nègre: from ethnography to performance -- Dancing diaspora: colonial, postcolonial, and diasporic readings of Josephine Baker as dancer and performance artist -- About face, or, what is this "back" in b(l)ack popular culture?: from Venus Hottentot to Video Hottie -- In retrospect. Sherley Anne Williams: "someone sweet angel chile" -- Bebe Moore Campbell: literature as equipment for living.
American fiction
American fiction
American fiction
African American women entertainers
African American women
African Americans in literature
African American women in literature
English
Languages & Literatures
American Literature