Asymmetrical Possessions: Zora Neale Hurston and the Gendered Fictions of Black Modernity (original) (raw)

The work analyzes Zora Neale Hurston's engagement with race, gender, and modernity through her 1938 ethnography, "Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica." It discusses how Hurston's perspective on asymmetry in black performance challenges linear narratives of modernity and critiques the evolving discourse of race and gender within the context of the black Atlantic. The text reveals modernity as an entangled practice laden with historical and political complexities, proposing that Hurston's work amplifies the potential for radical political thought through the lens of shared cultural practices.