05085nam 2200805 a 450 991082328160332120200520144314.01-4008-1504-51-282-75344-497866127534421-4008-2259-910.1515/9781400822591(CKB)2670000000044935(EBL)617299(OCoLC)705527033(DE-B1597)446258(OCoLC)979685327(OCoLC)984665859(DE-B1597)9781400822591(MiAaPQ)EBC617299(EXLCZ)99267000000004493519980501d1999 uy 0engur|nu---|u||utxtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierSpiritual interrogations culture, gender, and community in early African American women's writing /Katherine Clay BassardCourse BookPrinceton, N.J. Princeton University Pressc19991 online resource (194 p.)Princeton studies in culture/power/historyDescription based upon print version of record.1-4008-0037-4 0-691-01647-X Includes bibliographical references (p. [165]-175) and index.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/history.American literatureAfrican American authorsHistory and criticismAmerican literatureWomen authorsHistory and criticismAmerican literature19th centuryHistory and criticismChristianity and literatureUnited StatesHistoryWomen and literatureUnited StatesHistorySpirituals (Songs)History and criticismAfrican American womenReligious lifeAfrican American women in literatureCommunity life in literatureSpiritual life in literatureReligion and literatureAmerican literatureAfrican American authorsHistory and criticism.American literatureWomen authorsHistory and criticism.American literatureHistory and criticism.Christianity and literatureHistory.Women and literatureHistory.Spirituals (Songs)History and criticism.African American womenReligious life.African American women in literature.Community life in literature.Spiritual life in literature.Religion and literature.810.9/382Bassard Katherine Clay1959-1600347MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910823281603321Spiritual Interrogations3923389UNINA