The Life and Resurrection Frederick Douglass: Rapping Religion and the Epistemology of Embodiment in the Narratives of 1845 and 1855 (original) (raw)
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J19: The Journal of Nineteenth Century Americanists, 2021
This essay shows how Frederick Douglass’s first two autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), ambiguously represent the power of African cosmologies in ways that might disorient nineteenth-century white readership into rethinking the illogic of slavery. I argue that Douglass evokes Yorùbá folk knowledge in his characterizations of Sandy Jenkins and his supernatural root, and that the narratives’ performance of objectivity and neutrality when representing them creates a sensibility of conceptual instability in the narratives. In his cryptic representations, I explain, Douglass enlivens mêtis—a technique in which speakers feign one purpose to cleverly achieve their opposite—as a radical rhetorical appeal. By showing how the narratives’ treatment of African cosmologies can implant uncertainty that raises questions about the logic that legitimated chattel slavery, this essay establishes Douglass’s autobiographies as early experiments with radical black aesthetics.
2015
Broadly definable as an interdisciplinary study of religion, music, literature, and history, this thesis analyzes the music of Kanye West and its evolution from the tradition of African-American art and religious thought. Tracing the roots of West’s rap music lyrically and thematically to its foundations in the slave songs, the blues, the literature/art of the Harlem Renaissance era, and the gangsta rap of Tupac Shakur, I explore how the catalog of his albums show a (post)modern evolution of African-American religious thought that first began in the slaves’ paradoxical re-appropriation of the hegemonic religion of their masters. Furthermore, I illustrate how West’s music evinces an evolution of the slaves’ divided religious identity and contributes to the subversions against the hegemony and oppression of white (supremacist) Christianity by African Americans throughout history. In demonstrating how the frameworks of both race and religion interact and collide in the historical battl...
Christianity Proper: Frederick Douglass as a Prophet of Black Liberation Theology
What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference-so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked.
Philosophy and Literature, 2011
Frederick Douglass describes vividly how his socio-political identity was scripted by the white other and how his spatio-temporal existence was constrained through constant surveillance and disciplinary dispositifs. Even so, Douglass was able to assert his humanity through creative acts of resistance. In this essay, I highlight the ways in which Douglass refused to accept the other-imposed narrative, demonstrating with his life the truth of his being—a human being unwilling to be classified as thing or property. As I engage key events from Douglass’s narrative, I likewise explore the ways in which the resistance-tactics he performs complement Foucault’s elaboration of power relations and resistance possibilities, as well as Bakhtin’s notions of authoritative and internally persuasive discourse.
Frederick Douglass and Robert Ingersoll -- From Religious Argument to the Appeal to Reason
Some American autobiographies, such as Benjamin Franklin’s, may be written with some candor about early faults, making “errata” along the way for mistakes, sharing with the reader life’s lessons learned. Frederick Douglass’s three autobiographies, on the other hand, are works connected to an ongoing performative act: the author’s public life as advocate for slaves, and later, for all free people of color. When the slave Frederick Bailey renamed himself as Frederick Douglass to mount the lecture platform, he created both a literary character and a dramatic one. This brief paper will examine how Douglass’s “performative act” evolved from an appeal to shared Christian values with some of his readers, to a more universal appeal to reason. I also suggest, from Douglass’s stances on particular issues, and from his brief collaboration with atheist Robert Ingersoll, that he might be perceived as a “closet freethinker.”
A Study of Selected Slave Narratives: Mapping the Importance of Religious Experience and Slave Songs
Criterion, 2015
The genre of slave narratives holds an influential place in the African-American literary tradition. The present paper seeks to analyze a few slave narratives-Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself by Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, Written by Himself by Henry Bibb and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs. The purpose is to underscore some of the aesthetic elements, argumentative strategies and literary techniques which characterize the genre and have enabled their success. This paper also concerns itself with the gamut of black religious experience and practice. It seeks to explore how slaves interpreted and adapted the teachings of Christianity and blended it with their African culture. The paper also traces how slaves carried forward their rich African-American legacy by narrating their experiences and expressing their religious views through the medium of songs and spirituals.
Making the Unseen Seen: Pedagogy and Aesthetics in African American Prophetic Preaching
Homiletic, 2009
This essay investigates the idea of African American prophetic preaching as a derivative of the message and agenda of the Hebrew prophet. 2 The essay demonstrates how critical consideration of the relationships between basic criteria of biblical prophetic speech, pedagogy (communal praxis), and cultural aesthetics (artistic beauty and power of Black oral expression), reveals a composite picture of the nature and function of African American prophetic preaching, and makes evident the need for a roadmap to rehabilitate the prophetic voice in America's Black pulpits. The fundamental premise is that African American preaching can become more communally constructive and consequential for our times when the African American preacher reclaims in spoken Word the voice of the prophet that speaks justice, divine intentionality and hope. To say all that might be said about African American prophetic preaching is not the intent of this essay. However, serious treatment must be given to this important subject if preachers are to become better informed and equipped to preach justice and hope. It is also important for homileticians to better understand the complexities within the African American preaching 1 I am cognizant of the obvious heterogeneity within Black religious life in America. However, there persists a historically constructed African American community in the U.S.-a critical mass of people of African descent, especially in heavily populated urban areas-whose shared history, cultural memory and distinctive sociocultural interests are self-evident. Readers will note that the use of the following terms Black and African American and African American prophetic preaching and prophetic Black preaching are descriptive labels used interchangeably in this essay. The interchangeable use of these terms is standard parlance today in Black studies, African American studies, and increasingly in Black homiletics. Also, my decision to capitalize the term Black is in recognition of the fact that recent scholarship is moving away from the term black in lowercase, which primarily suggests an ontological description of identity formation solely based on race. The capitalization of the term Black and not white is a way to signal-a rhetorical disruption of domination and white supremacy‖ and to honor, in a broader fashion, the particular historical and cultural legacy of people of African descent in this country. Frequently used as an alternate expression to the term African American, my decision to capitalize the term Black also comes from respect for the politics of its fluid and intergenerational usage in the vernacular of persons in communities of African descent.
Rap and Religion Black Theology Review
is described as the leading representative of Black theology in the United Kingdom. Editor of the influential Black Theology: An International Journal, Reddie has produced thirteen books and more than fifteen articles and essays on Christian education and Black theology. And this current text does not disappoint. Indeed, it continues to deepen his masterful critical command of Black theology and the formal engagement with theology and religious studies.