First Pure, Then Peaceable Frederick Douglass Reads James

by Aymer, Margaret

• ISBN13: 9780567033079
• ISBN10: 0567033074
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-06
• Publisher: Bloomsbury T & T Clark

Summary

Margaret Aymer follows up on the challenge set by Vincent L Wimbush to take seriously those who "read darkness," and to consider what it is they are doing when they read the Bible as "scripture", by examining the ways in which Frederick Douglass, the nin

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. xi
Frederick Douglass, Bible Reader	p. 1
Biblical Studies: An On-going Critique	p. 2
African Americans in the Guild of Biblical Studies	p. 5
Cultural Interpretation: A Review and Critique	p. 7
Moving from Silence to Darkness	p. 10
Reading "Darkness": A Theoretical Model of Marronage	p. 11
To Read "Darkness": Frederick Douglass as Exemplum	p. 16
Frederick Douglass, "Darkness Reader"	p. 19
A Very Brief Biography	p. 20
Is Douglass "Dark" Enough?	p. 21
The Language of Religion	p. 23
"First Pure, then Peaceable: The choice of Jas 3:17	p. 25
Formation or Home-Building and the Bible	p. 27
Redefining "Religion": Douglass's Abolitionist Speeches and James 3:17	p. 30
Oratory and Orientation	p. 30
The Dimensions of Home: Frederick Douglass and Jas 3:17	p. 34
"American Slavery, American Religion, and the Free Church of Scotland"	p. 35
Structural, Textual, and Ideational Aspects	p. 35
Rhetoric and Signification	p. 38
Other Formative Uses of Jas 3:17 in Douglass's Abolitionist Speeches	p. 43
"The Fourth of July" and Jas 3:17	p. 47
"John Brown" and Jas 3:17	p. 50
The Language of Formation: Further Considerations	p. 52
"Friendship with the KO[Sigma]MO[Sigma] is Enmity with God": "Darkness Reading" and the Epistle of James	p. 53
Reading "Darkness," Reading James	p. 53
A Brief Overview of the Epistle	p. 54
James as Re-form[ul]ation	p. 54
Intertextuality and "Scripturalizing" in James	p. 59
Signification and Other Rhetorical Moves in James	p. 62
"Darkness Reading" and Jas 3:17	p. 68
The Contours of the Pericope: Formal and Structural Considerations	p. 68
Re-form[ul]ation and Jas 3:13-18	p. 70
Intertextuality in Jas 3:13-18	p. 71
Signification, Rhetoric and Jas 3:13-18	p. 72
James and Darkness: Preliminary Conclusions	p. 73
Taking an "Ell": Reading, Darkness, and Resistance	p. 74
A "Reading" Lesson	p. 74
"Reading" as Resistance	p. 76
"Scriptures": The Norms of "America"	p. 78
Evangelical Christianity and the Myth of America	p. 81
"Taking an Ell": "Reading" and "Darkness"	p. 83
Why did Douglass "Read" James?	p. 86
"Reading Darkness" and "Biblical Studies"	p. 92
"Reading Darkness" as "Changing the 'Subject'"	p. 93
Appendix	p. 99
Notes	p. 106
Bibliography	p. 134
Index of Ancient Sources	p. 143
Index of Authors/Subjects	p. 146
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