109 p., Examines the local and global tensions which challenge inculturation in Jamaica, including the role African-derived religions play in that context. The history of Christianity in Jamaica, the development of the Roman Catholic Church's teachings with regards to culture, globalization and its impact on the local Church, and the appropriate method for doing inculturation in the Jamaica in an increasingly global context are examined.
Just as dance forms originating from Saint-Domingue made their way into southern culture, religion also left its indelible marks. It is well documented that the Vodou religion in New Orleans began to blossom around 1800 with Sanite Dede, a free woman of color who arrived from Saint-Domingue. The Saint-Domingan Vodou priestess was replaced in 1820 by New Orleans's native Marie Laveau, who became legendary. Haitians were for the most part Catholic; their presence in the various U.S. cities where they settled gave rise to the establishment of a number of biracial congregations. In Baltimore, in 1829, four colored Saint-Domingan women--Elizabeth Lange, Marie Magdelene Baas, Marie Rose Boegue, and Marie Therese Duchemin--established the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the world's first Black religious community, and founded the School for Colored Girls.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
251 p., Explores how Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdés (also known as Plácido) appropriated Hispanic literature to inscribe an African descendant subjectivity in 19th century proto-nationalist Cuban discourse. Revises Mary Louise Pratt's notion of "intercultural texts" and Angel Rama's "literary transculturation", proposing "transculturated colonial literature" to trace the contradictions, re-significations, silences and shifts in the aesthetic and ideological function of Manzano and Plácido's texts. As such, 19th century Afro-Cuban literature is analyzed as an active space of negotiation and exchange disputing racial and religious hierarchies to inscribe an Afro-Cuban religio-cultural subject. The author concludes that both Manzano and Plácido disrupted the aesthetic and ideological norms of the colonial status quo by producing the first instance of literary transculturation in Cuba.
The Jamaica Diaspora Day of Fasting and Prayer 2013 is presented by the Intercessory Prayer Ministry International www.goipmi.org the Regional Coordinator and members of Clergy of the Jamaican Diaspora (GTA Chapter) in association with the Consulate General of Jamaica in Toronto
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
182 p., Explores the dialogue between two central institutions in African Caribbean life: the church and the dancehall. Beckford highlights how Dub – one of the central features of dancehall culture – can be mobilized as a framework for re-evaluating theology, taking apart doctrine and reconstructing it under the influence of a guiding theme.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
219 p., Explores current trends in the interdisciplinary study of literature and theology. Includes Fiona Darroch's "Re-imagining the sacred in Caribbean literature."
Members of the Victory Tabernacle New Testament Church of God gathered by the seaside behind the Forum Hotel in Portmore following their three-hour worship service to witness children, a few males and many women urging them to give their lives to Christ. Photograph (Reverend Errol Duncans of the Victory Tabernacle New Testament Church of God in Portmore, St. Catherine.)
301 p., In many of the francophone Caribbean's most influential texts, a black messiah conquers his enemies and takes over the land. This man is a superman, who hears the cry of his people and delivers them from slavery and the Code Noir (a black code). He draws strength from Voodoo and Roman Catholicism to set his people free or die trying. Argues that scholars have not studied the extent to which the messiah figure dominates French Caribbean fiction and how this trend colors our perceptions of black leadership. After presenting messianism in the history of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Haiti, the author considers key messianic passages in francophone literature and highlight where rhetorical devices and figurative language transcribe metaphysical beliefs. These close readings correct the misconception that the French Caribbean and its religions are not messianic.
