African American Female Mysticism: Nineteenth-Century Religious Activism PDF
Preview African American Female Mysticism: Nineteenth-Century Religious Activism
Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice Series Editors Dwight N. Hopkins and Linda E. Thomas Published by Palgrave Macmillan “How Long This Road”: Race, Religion, and the Legacy of C. Eric Lincoln Edited by Alton B. Pollard, III and Love Henry Whelchel, Jr. African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of Nimrod By Anthony B. Pinn White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity By James W. Perkinson The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American Christianity: Race, Heathens, and the People of God By Sylvester Johnson Loving the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic Edited by Anthony B. Pinn and Dwight N. Hopkins Transformative Pastoral Leadership in the Black Church By Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr. Shamanism, Racism, and Hip Hop Culture: Essays on White Supremacy and Black Subversion By James W. Perkinson Women, Ethics, and Inequality in U.S. Healthcare: “To Count Among the Living” By Aana Marie Vigen Black Theology in Transatlantic Dialogue: Inside Looking Out, Outside Looking In By Anthony G. Reddie Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil By Emilie M. Townes Whiteness and Morality: Pursuing Racial Justice through Reparations and Sovereignty By Jennifer Harvey The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Desmond Mpilo Tutu By Johnny B. Hill Conceptions of God, Freedom, and Ethics in African American and Jewish Theology By Kurt Buhring Black Theology and Pedagogy By Noel Leo Erskine The Origins of Black Humanism in America: Reverend Ethelred Brown and the Unitarian Church By Juan M. Floyd-Thomas Black Religion and the Imagination of Matter in the Atlantic World By James A. Noel Bible Witness in Black Churches By Garth Kasimu Baker-Fletcher Enslaved Women and the Art of Resistance in Antebellum America By Renee K. Harrison Ethical Complications of Lynching: Ida B. Wells’s Interrogation of American Terror By Angela D. Sims Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism By Roger A. Sneed The Tragic Vision of African American Religion By Matthew V. Johnson Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies Edited by Bernadette J. Brooten with the editorial assistance of Jacqueline L. Hazelton Gifts of Virtue, Alice Walker, and Womanist Ethics By Melanie Harris Racism and the Image of God By Karen Teel Self, Culture, and Others in Womanist Practical Theology By Phillis Isabella Sheppard Black Men Worshipping: Intersecting Anxieties of Race, Gender, and Christian Embodiment By Stacy C. Boyd Womanism against Socially-Constructed Matriarchal Images: A Theoretical Model towards a Therapeutic Goal By MarKeva Gwendolyn Hill Indigenous Black Theology: Toward an African-Centered Theology of the African- American Religious By Jawanza Eric Clark Black Bodies and the Black Church: A Blues Slant By Kelly Brown Douglas A Theological Account of Nat Turner: Christianity, Violence, and Theology By Karl Lampley African American Female Mysticism: Nineteenth-Century Religious Activism By Joy R. Bostic African American Female Mysticism Nineteenth-Century Religious Activism Joy R. Bostic AFRICAN AMERICAN FEMALE MYSTICISM Copyright © Joy R. Bostic, 2013. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-37372-4 All rights reserved. First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. I SBN 978–1–349–47676–3 I SBN 978–1–137–37505–6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137375056 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2013 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In memory of my father James Earl Bostic Jr. And my maternal grandmother Mozella Hoskins This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi 1 African American Female Mysticism: The Nineteenth-Century Contextual Landscape 1 2 Defining Mysticism and the Sacred-Social Worlds of African American Women 2 7 3 Standing upon the Precipice: Community, Evil, and Black Female Subjectivity 49 4 God I Didn’t Know You Were So Big: Apophatic Mysticism and Expanding Worldviews 7 1 5 Look at What You Have Done: Sacred Power and Reimagining the Divine 95 6 Weaving the Spider’s Web: African American Female Mystical Activism 119 Notes 143 Bibliography 1 67 Index 1 75 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of those who have provided support and critical feedback during the research and writing of this book. First of all, my warmth and appreciation go to my dissertation advisor Delores Williams and dissertation committee members Alton Pollard III and Hyun Kyung Chung. Their encouragement and affirmation of my work have continued to sustain me over the years. I would also like to thank my c olleagues in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University: my faculty advisor Tim Beal who gave generously of his time to advise me and read my work; my departmental chair Peter Haas for his continued promotion of my research and for being available when I needed to “talk through” my ideas; and my colleagues Bill Deal and Deepak Sarma who have supported me as a colleague and served as “sounding boards” for my theoretical musings. Special thanks also to Larry Murphy and the late Lowell Livezey for whom I served as a research assistant as I was completing my Master of Divinity and who continued to advise and mentor me as a scholar as I worked on this book project. Christopher Morse, James Cone, Vincent Wimbush, and the late Jim Washington also served as mentors and advisors during my days as a doctoral student at Union Theological Seminary. They have provided invaluable support along the way. I also want recognize Linda Thomas and Carol Duncan for validating this project at critical stages of the research and writing process. I am indebted to a host of friends and colleagues: Renee Harrison, Martha Wiggins, Kimberly Jordan Vaughn, Lisa Weaver, Raphael Warnock, Adam Clark, Lorena Parrish, Sally MacNichol, Kanyere Eaton, Dianne Diakité, and Violet Dease. Words cannot express how much I appreciate the laughter, honesty, compassion,
The list of books you might like
