Speaking power : Black feminist orality in women's narratives of slavery / DoVeanna S. Fulton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fulton, DoVeanna S., 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American prose literature--African American authors--History and criticism.

American prose literature.

American prose literature--African American authors.

American prose literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

American prose literature--Women authors.

Enslaved women--United States--Biography--History and criticism.

Enslaved women.

Enslaved persons' writings, American.

Slave narratives.

United States.

African American women--Biography--History and criticism.

African American women.

African American women--Biography.

Slave narratives--United States--History and criticism.

Enslaved persons' writings, American--History and criticism.

Narration (Rhetoric)--History--19th century.

Narration (Rhetoric).

History.

Autobiography--African American authors.

Autobiography.

Feminism and literature--United States.

Feminism and literature.

Oral tradition--United States.

Oral tradition.

Autobiography--Women authors.

Slavery in literature.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xvi, 164 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2006]

Summary:

In Speaking Power, DoVeanna S. Fulton explores and analyzes the use of oral traditions in African American women's autobiographical and fictional narratives of slavery. African American women have consistently employed oral traditions not only to relate the pain and degradation of slavery, but also to celebrate the subversions, struggles, and triumphs of Black experience. Fulton examines orality as a rhetorical strategy, its role in passing on family and personal history, and its ability to empower, subvert oppression, assert agency, and create representations for the past. In addition to taking an insightful look at obscure or little-studied slave narratives like Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon and the Narrative of Sojourner Truth, Fulton also brings a fresh perspective to more familiar works, such as Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Harriet Wilson's Our Nig, and highlights Black feminist orality in such works as Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Gayl Jones's Corregidora.

Contents:

Preface: Black Feminist Orality: Identifying a Tradition ix

Introduction: "So my mother told me": African American Women's Writing and Oral Traditions 1

Chapter 1 Speak Sisters, Speak: Oral Empowerment in Louisa Picquet, The Octoroon; The Narrative of Sojourner Truth; and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 21

Chapter 2 Tale-Baring and Dressing Out: Black Women's Speech Acts That Expose Torture and Abuse by Slave Mistresses in Our Nig, Sylvia Dubois, and The Story of Mattie J. Jackson 41

Chapter 3 Strategic Silence: Respectability, Gender, and Protest in Iola Leroy and Contending Forces 61

Chapter 4 "Will the circle be unbroken": (Dis)Locating Love within the Legacy of Slavery in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Corregidora 81

Chapter 5 Black Girls Singing Black Girls' Songs: Exploring the Wounds of Slavery to Heal Contemporary Pain in Beloved, Dessa Rose, Kindred, and The Gilda Stories 101

Coda: Sister Griot-Historians: Representing Events and Lives for Liberation 123.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-157) and index.

ISBN:

079146637X

OCLC:

58456838

Publisher Number:

9780791466377