05265nam 22008175 450 991078527170332120230422051324.01-282-75344-497866127534421-4008-2259-910.1515/9781400822591(CKB)2670000000044935(EBL)617299(OCoLC)705527033(DE-B1597)446258(OCoLC)979685327(OCoLC)984665859(DE-B1597)9781400822591(MiAaPQ)EBC617299(EXLCZ)99267000000004493520190708d1999 fg 0engur|nu---|u||utxtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierSpiritual Interrogations Culture, Gender, and Community in Early African American Women's Writing /Katherine Clay BassardCourse BookPrinceton, NJ :Princeton University Press,[1999]©19991 online resource (194 p.)Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/HistoryDescription based upon print version of record.0-691-01647-X Front matter --Contents --Acknowledgments --Introduction --Chapter One. The Daughters' Arrival: Histories, Theories, Vernaculars --Chapter Two. Diaspora Subjectivity and Transatlantic Crossings: Phillis Wheatley's Poetics of Recovery --Chapter Three. "The Too Advent'rous Strain": Slavery, Conversion, and Poetic Empowerment in Phillis Wheatley's Elegies --Chapter Four. "Social Piety" in Ann Plato's Essays --Chapter Five. "I Took a Text": Itinerancy, Community, and Intertextuality in Jarena Lee's Spiritual Narratives --Chapter Six. Rituals of Desire: Spirit, Culture, and Sexuality in the Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson --Chapter Seven. Performing Community: Culture, Community, and African American Subjectivity before Emancipation --Afterword. The Sacred Subject --Notes --Selected Bibliography --IndexThe late eighteenth century witnessed an influx of black women to the slave-trading ports of the American Northeast. The formation of an early African American community, bound together by shared experiences and spiritual values, owed much to these women's voices. The significance of their writings would be profound for all African Americans' sense of their own identity as a people. Katherine Clay Bassard's book is the first detailed account of pre-Emancipation writings from the period of 1760 to 1863, in light of a developing African American religious culture and emerging free black communities. Her study--which examines the relationship among race, culture, and community--focuses on four women: the poet Phillis Wheatley and poet and essayist Ann Plato, both Congregationalists; and the itinerant preacher Jarena Lee, and Shaker eldress Rebecca Cox Jackson, who, with Lee, had connections with African Methodism. Together, these women drew on what Bassard calls a "spirituals matrix," which transformed existing literary genres to accommodate the spiritual music and sacred rituals tied to the African diaspora. Bassard's important illumination of these writers resurrects their path-breaking work. They were cocreators, with all black women who followed, of African American intellectual life.Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/HistoryAfrican American women -- Intellectual lifeAfrican American women -- Religious lifeAfrican American women in literatureAmerican literature -- 19th century -- History and criticismAmerican literature -- African American authors -- History and criticismAmerican literature -- Women authors -- History and criticismChristianity and literature -- United StatesCommunity life in literatureReligion and literature -- United StatesSpiritual life in literatureSpirituals (Songs) -- History and criticismWheatley, Phillis, 1753-1784 -- ReligionWomen and literature -- United StatesAfrican American women -- Intellectual life.African American women -- Religious life.African American women in literature.American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.American literature -- African American authors -- History and criticism.American literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.Christianity and literature -- United States.Community life in literature.Religion and literature -- United States.Spiritual life in literature.Spirituals (Songs) -- History and criticism.Wheatley, Phillis, 1753-1784 -- Religion.Women and literature -- United States.810.9/382Bassard Katherine Clay1517098DE-B1597DE-B1597BOOK9910785271703321Spiritual Interrogations3753957UNINA