Writing Vodou into Literature: Exploring Diasporic Religious Symbols and Lore in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” and Jonah’s Gourd Vine
@article{Jenkins2016WritingVI, title={Writing Vodou into Literature: Exploring Diasporic Religious Symbols and Lore in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” and Jonah’s Gourd Vine}, author={Tammie Jenkins}, journal={Journal of Africana Religions}, year={2016}, volume={4}, pages={215 - 224} }
Abstract: This article explores Zora Neale Hurston’s role in promoting the study of African-derived religions such as Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Hoodoo through her literary works. An anthropologist by trade and an author by choice, Hurston assumed the roles of observer, initiate, and participant as she absorbed the lore and customs associated with these African-derived religious practices from devotees in Haiti and New Orleans. Hurston’s “Sweat” (1926) and Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1933) serve as…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 49 REFERENCES
Zora Neale Hurston and Mary Austin: A Case Study in Ethnography, Literary Modernism, and Contemporary Ethnic Fiction
- Art
- 1996
As "regional" or "ethnic" writers, Zora Neale Hurston and Mary Hunter Austin have suffered from a neglect of their literary strategies in favor of an analysis of the cultural context of their…
On African Origins: Creolization and Connaissance in Haitian Vodou
- History
- 2002
What is African in the African diaspora? In this article, I return to the problematic question of African origins in the black Americas, arguing that despite the distortions of baseline genealogies…
Performing The Word: African American Poetry As Vernacular Culture
- Art
- 1999
Brown (English, Austin Peay State Univ.) organizes her study around the concept of "African American vernacular culture," which she defines as "customs and mores that appear to be most specifically…
Vodou in Haiti: Way of Life and Mode of Survival
- Philosophy
- 2006
This chapter originates in the movement of rediscovery and rehabilitation of religions and modes of spirituality of indigenous peoples with a long history of subjugation and whose beliefs have been…
The Haiti-New Orleans Vodou Connection: Zora Neale Hurston as Initiate-Observer
- Education
- 2006
This chapter will analyze Hurston’s journey as an initiate-observer of Vodou and her “introspection into the mystery” of the religion as a Vodou adept serving the spirits. This is an extraordinary…
A Review of African Oral Traditions and Literature
- ArtAfrican Studies Review
- 1985
There is an unbroken continuity in African verbal art forms, from interacting oral genres to such literary productions as the novel and poetry. The strength of the oral tradition seems not to have…
Handbook of Qualitative Research
- Sociology
- 1994
Introduction - Norman K Denzin and Yvonna S Lincoln The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research PART ONE: LOCATING THE FIELD Qualitative Methods - Arthur J Vidich and Stanford M Lyman Their…
Yorùbá Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo
- Political Science, History
- 2007
The enormous impact of the Yorùbá religion on the New World African diaspora has been well established by scholars, especially when referring to the heavily Yorùbánized popular Creole belief systems…
The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism
- Art
- 1988
The second volume in a ground-breaking trilogy on Afro-American literature, The Signifying Monkey explores the relationships between the African and Afro-American vernacular traditions and black…
Once Upon a Time: Oral Traditions as History in Africa
- History
- 1971
Most precolonial African civilizations were "oral civilizations." Our own European or American contemporary societies are "liter ate civilizations." Inevitably, the attitudes of two such different so…