Black Women’s Literature of the Americas Griots and Goddesses

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

Origins and New Beginnings

Hybrid Cultures and Identities

Introduction

Embarkations: Traditional African Spirituality

Disembarkations: New World Syncretism

Introduction

Um defeito de cor: Crossings and Manifestations

Daughters of the Stone: Oshun Speaks

Introduction

Beloved: Haunting Memories and Painful Disremembering

Um defeito de cor: A Lifetime of (Re)Memories

Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century and Bitita’s Diary: The Childhood Memoirs of Carolina Maria de Jesus: Memories of Identity

Introduction

Crossings and Dislocations

Rootedness and Spirituality

Intertwined Root Theories

Negotiations of Diaspora: A Literary Selection

The Spirits Dance Mambo: A Double Diaspora

Introduction

Healing Practices: Women between Cities and Worlds

Um Defeito de Cor and Sortes de Villamor: Echoes of Spirits and Spiritual Healing

The Altar of My Soul and The Spirits Dance Mambo: Orishas, Patakís, and Identity

Introduction

Beloved and Daughters of the Stone: Embodied Inscriptions and the Passing On of "Herstories"

Introduction

Maternity Sought and Maternity Denied: Beloved, Daughters of the Stone, and Um defeito de cor

Introduction

Liminal Sexuality and Gender Ambiguity in The Red of His Shadow

The voices echo on

Biography

Tonia Leigh Wind completed her PhD at the University of Georgia, USA and is currently a Teaching Associate of Portuguese at the University of Nottingham in the UK.

"Black Women’s Literature of the Americas: Griots and Goddesses is thoroughly researched, logical in argument progression, and deeply engaging and persuasive in its clear narrative. The larger argument of the book is instructive: it prioritizes historical and literary texts from Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States to develop a comparative study of how the discussed “griots” and “goddesses” strategy of negotiation of issues of identity and belonging through paradigms of (re)memory and the Sacred. This is a book of lasting value and relevance to those interested in transmission of African women throughout the Americas, particularly to future generations of women of African descent."

Ibigbolade Simon Aderibigbe, PhD, University of Georgia

 

"Tonia Leigh Wind fulfills through her cultural studies, specifically on the perspective of gender, a great contribution to academic studies that highlight this critical and analytical analysis in order to unveil frameworks that give way to a current discussion with regard to topics relating to power and the validation of discourses."

Dr. Iêdo de Oliveira Paes, Federal Rural University of Pernambuco

 

"Griots and Goddesses is an important contribution to deeper understandings of Black women’s voices in historical and literary texts and spiritual practice from the Spanish speaking Caribbean, Brazil and the U.S. It is a timely exploration of Black women’s engagements with the Sacred as contestation and creations of community as sites of empowerment for students, scholars and interested readers alike."

Dr. Lesley Feracho, University of Georgia

 

"With rare humility and extreme technical competence, Tonia Wind listens to the voices dispersed over hundreds of years and by millions of individuals to weave the conclusion of a female narrative, in which griots, orishas, and writers are medium between worlds to sustain survival and rebirth of the African soul in the Americas."

Dr. Nilma Gonçalves Lacerda, Fluminense Federal University

 

"At a moment when historical racial injustice and social and economic inequalities have, once again, been blatantly exposed, Wind’s book powerfully reveals representations of diasporic enslaved Black women across the Americas, whose spirituality is not only a cry for liberation but a vigorous instrument of collective resistance."

Dr. Núria Vilanova, American University