Deeper Shades of Purple

by Floyd-Thomas, Stacey M.

• ISBN13: 9780814727539
• ISBN10: 0814727530
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-01
• Publisher: New York Univ Pr

Summary

Womanist approaches to the study of religion and society have contributed much to our understanding of Black religious life, activism, and women's liberation.Deeper Shades of Purpleexplores the achievements of this movement over the past two decades and evaluates some of the leading voices and different perspectives within this burgeoning field.Deeper Shades of Purplebrings together a who's who of scholars in the study of Black women and religion who view their scholarship through a womanist critical lens. The contributors revisit Alice Walker's definition of womanism for its viability for the approaches to discourses in religion of Black women scholars. Whereas Walker has defined what it means to be womanist, these contributors define what it means to practice womanism, and illuminate how womanism has been used as a vantage point for the theoretical orientations and methodological approaches of Black women scholar-activists.Contributors: Karen Baker-Fletcher, Katie G. Cannon, M. Shawn Copeland, Kelly Brown Douglas, Carol B. Duncan, Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, Rachel Elizabeth Harding, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, Melanie L. Harris, Diana L. Hayes, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Kwok Pui-Lan, Daisy L. Machado, Debra Majeed, Anthony B. Pinn, Rosetta Ross, Letty M. Russell, Shani Settles, Dianne M. Stewart, Raedorah Stewart-Dodd, Emilie M. Townes, Traci C. West, and Nancy Lynne Westfield.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xiii
Wisdom Rocked Steady [poem]	xv
Nancy Lynne Westfield
Introduction: Writing for Our Lives—Womanism as an Epistemological Revolution	1	(16)
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas
PART I Radical Subjectivity
When Mama Was God [poem]	17	(63)
Raedorah Stewart-Dodd
1 Structured Academic Amnesia: As If This True Womanist Story Never Happened	19	(10)
Katie G. Cannon
2 From "Force-Ripe" to "Womanish/ist": Black Girlhood and African Diasporan Feminist Consciousness	29	(9)
Carol B. Duncan
3 Womanism Encounters Islam: A Muslim Scholar Considers the Efficacy of a Method Rooted in the Academy and the Church	38	(16)
Debra Mubashshir Majeed
4 Standing in the Shoes My Mother Made: The Making of a Catholic Womanist Theologian	54	(26)
Diana L. Hayes
PART II Traditional Communalism
Reflecting\Black [poem]	80	(63)
Dianne M. Stewart
5 Dancing Limbo: Black Passages through the Boundaries of Place, Race, Class, and Religion	82	(16)
Dianne M. Stewart
6 Hospitality, Haints, and Healing: A Southern African American Meaning of Religion	98	(17)
Rosemarie Freeney Harding with Rachel Elizabeth Harding
7 Lessons and Treasures in Our Mothers' Witness: Why I Write about Black Women's Activism	115	(13)
Rosetta E. Ross
8 "Mama Why...?" A Womanist Epistemology of Hope	128	(15)
Nancy Lynne Westfield
PART III Redemptive Self-Love
I've Been Mixed Like Cornbread [poem]	143	(15)
Raedorah Stewart-Dodd
9 Twenty Years a Womanist: An Affirming Challenge	145	(13)
Kelly Brown Douglas
10 A Womanist Journey	158	(18)
Karen Baker-Fletcher
11 Quilting Relations with Creation: Overcoming, Going Through, and Not Being Stuck	176	(15)
Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan
12 The Sweet Fire of Honey: Womanist Visions of Osun as a Methodology of Emancipation	191	(18)
Shani Settles
PART IV Critical Engagement
Neverless, in Stark Contradiction [poem]	209	(2)
Nancy Lynne Westfield
13 Womanist Humanism: A New Hermeneutic	211	(15)
Melanie L. Harris
14 A Thinking Margin: The Womanist Movement as Critical Cognitive Praxis	226	(10)
M. Shawn Copeland
15 The Womanist Dancing Mind: Speaking to the Expansiveness of Womanist Discourse	236	(15)
Emilie M. Townes
PART V Appropriation and Reciprocity
they came because of the wailing [poem]	251	(1)
emilie townes
16 Womanist Visions, Womanist Spirit: An Asian Feminist's Response	252	(8)
Kwok Pui-lan
17 Lavender Celebrates Purple: A White Feminist Response	260	(5)
Letty M. Russell
18 Womanists and Mujeristas, Sisters in the Struggle: A Mujerista Response	265	(5)
Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz
19 Mining the Motherlode: A Latina Response	270	(5)
Daisy L. Machado
20 What's the Theological Equivalent of a "Mannish Boy"? Learning a Lesson from Womanist Scholarship A Humanist and Black Theologian Response	275	(7)
Anthony B. Pinn
21 Lies above Suspicion: Being Human in Black Folk Tales A Black Liberation Theologian Response	282	(9)
Dwight N. Hopkins
22 Is a Womanist a Black Feminist? Marking the Distinctions and Defying Them: A Black Feminist Response	291	(6)
Traci C. West
Selected Womanist Bibliography	297	(16)
About the Contributors	313	(8)
Index	321