Download or read book Osun Seegesi written by Diedre Badejo and published by Africa Research and Publications. This book was released on 1996 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does our sophisticated, technically advanced society have to learn from a venerable African goddess? That is the question Dr. Diedre Badejo set out to answer a decade ago, armed only with a tape recorder, a working knowledge of Yoruba language, literature, and culture, and a mental "image" of the African Motherland molded as much by her great grandmother's character as by her own experience of the Black Power and Black Studies movements of the '60s and '70s. The answers Dr. Badejo found as she immersed herself in the ritual orature, sacred songs, and festival drama of the Yoruba goddess Osun Seegesi at the deity's principal shrine in the city of Osogbo, Nigeria, are shared with the world in this detailed documentary/analysis that presents a startling view of human relations and relationships that is powerful in its practicality and revolutionary in its civility. What Osun (pronounced "Oh-Shoon") offers to a civilization standing "at the crossroads" and poised on the "abyss of transition", says the author, is nothing less than "an African feminist theory that challenges the hegemony of the Western social order" with a holistic sociocultural vision that recognizes and affirms the reciprocal role of women and men in building and sustaining a truly civil society.
Download or read book Our Mothers Our Powers Our Texts written by Teresa N. Washington and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-27 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Washington writes supple and thoughtful prose and creatively integrates African and African-derived terminology, which never distract the reader. I consider Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts not only a brilliant study, but also a model to be emulated." —Ousseynou B. Traore, William Patterson University Àjé is a Yoruba word that signifies a spiritual power of vast potential, as well as the human beings who exercise that power. Although both men and women can have Àjé, its owners and controllers are women, the literal and cosmic Mothers who are revered as the gods of society. Because of its association with female power, its invisibility and profundity, Àjé is often misconstrued as witchcraft. However, as Teresa N. Washington points out in Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts, Àjé is central to the Yoruba ethos and cosmology. Not only does it underpin the concepts of creation and creativity, but as a force of justice and retribution, Àjé is essential to social harmony and balance. As Africans were forced into exile and enslavement, they took Àjé with them and continued its work of creating, destroying, harming, and healing in the New World. Washington seeks out Àjé’s subversive power of creation and re-creation in a diverse range of Africana texts, from both men and women, from both oral and contemporary literature, and across space and time. She guides readers to an understanding of the symbolic, methodological, and spiritual issues that are central to important works by Africana writers but are rarely elucidated by Western criticism. She begins with an examination of the ancient forms of Àjé in Yoruba culture, which creates a framework for innovative readings of important works by Africana writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Ben Okri, Wole Soyinka, Jamaica Kincaid, and Ntozake Shange. This rich analysis will appeal to readers of Africana literature, African religion and philosophy, feminist studies, and comparative literature.
Download or read book Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere written by Oyeronke Olajubu and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wide range of oral and written sources, this book shows that women occupy a central place in the religious worldview and life of the Yoruba people and shows how men and women engage in mutually beneficial roles in the Yoruba religious sphere. It explores how gender issues play out in two Yoruba religious traditions—indigenous religion and Christianity in Southwestern Nigeria. Rather than shy away from illuminating the tensions between the prominent roles of Yoruba women in religion and their perceived marginalization, author Oyeronke Olajubu underscores how Yoruba women have challenged marginalization in ways unprecedented in other world religions.
Download or read book African Sacred Spaces written by 'BioDun J. Ogundayo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-02-06 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on space in African and Black religion and spirituality through the lenses of area studies, African and black diaspora studies, history and culture, cultural studies, ecotourism, environmentalism, and sustainability.
Download or read book Women and Religion in the African Diaspora written by R. Marie Griffith and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-09-22 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark collection of newly commissioned essays explores how diverse women of African descent have practiced religion as part of the work of their ordinary and sometimes extraordinary lives. By examining women from North America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Africa, the contributors identify the patterns that emerge as women, religion, and diaspora intersect, mapping fresh approaches to this emergent field of inquiry. The volume focuses on issues of history, tradition, and the authenticity of African-derived spiritual practices in a variety of contexts, including those where memories of suffering remain fresh and powerful. The contributors discuss matters of power and leadership and of religious expressions outside of institutional settings. The essays study women of Christian denominations, African and Afro-Caribbean traditions, and Islam, addressing their roles as spiritual leaders, artists and musicians, preachers, and participants in bible-study groups. This volume's transnational mixture, along with its use of creative analytical approaches, challenges existing paradigms and summons new models for studying women, religions, and diasporic shiftings across time and space.
Download or read book Osun across the Waters written by Joseph M. Murphy and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2001-10-09 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ã’sun is a brilliant deity whose imagery and worldwide devotion demand broad and deep scholarly reflection. Contributors to the ground-breaking Africa's Ogun, edited by Sandra Barnes (Indiana University Press, 1997), explored the complex nature of Ogun, the orisa who transforms life through iron and technology. Ã’sun across the Waters continues this exploration of Yoruba religion by documenting Ã’sun religion. Ã’sun presents a dynamic example of the resilience and renewed importance of traditional Yoruba images in negotiating spiritual experience, social identity, and political power in contemporary Africa and the African diaspora. The 17 contributors to Ã’sun across the Waters delineate the special dimensions of Ã’sun religion as it appears through multiple disciplines in multiple cultural contexts. Tracing the extent of Ã’sun traditions takes us across the waters and back again. Ã’sun traditions continue to grow and change as they flow and return from their sources in Africa and the Americas.
Download or read book African Religions written by Douglas Thomas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-12-01 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book supplies fundamental information about the diverse religious beliefs of Africa, explains central tenets of the African worldview, and overviews various forms of African spiritual practices and experiences. Africa is an ancient land with a significant presence in world history—especially regarding the history of the United States, given the ethnic origins of a substantial proportion of the nation's population. This book presents a broad range of information about the diverse religious beliefs of Africa that serves to describe the beliefs, practices, deities, sacred places, and creation stories of African religions. Readers will learn about key forms of spiritual practices and experiences, such as incantations and prayer, dance as worship, and spirit possession, all of which pepper African American religious experiences today. The entries also discuss central tenets of the African worldview—for example, the belief that humankind is not to fight nature, but to integrate into the natural environment. This volume is specifically written to be highly accessible to students. It provides a much-needed source of connections between the religious traditions and practices of African Americans and those of the people of the continent of Africa. Through these connections, this work will inspire tolerance of other religions, traditions, and backgrounds. The included selection of primary documents provides users first-hand accounts of African religious beliefs and practices, serving to promote critical thinking skills and support Common Core State Standards.
Download or read book Religious Feminist Activist written by Laurel Zwissler and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018-04 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Religious, Feminist, Activist, Laurel Zwissler investigates the political and religious identities of women who understand their social-justice activism as religiously motivated. Placing these women in historical context as faith-based activists for social change, this book discusses what their activities reveal about the public significance of religion in the pluralistic context of North America and in our increasingly globalized world. Zwissler’s ethnographic interviews with feminist Catholics, Pagans, and United Church Protestants reveal radically different views of religious and political expression and illuminate how individual women and their communities negotiate issues of personal identity, spirituality, and political responsibility. Political activists of faith recount adventurous tales of run-ins with police, agonizing moments of fear and powerlessness in the face of global inequality, touching moments of community support, and successful projects that improve the lives of others. Religious, Feminist, Activist combines religion, politics, and globalization—subjects frequently discussed in macro terms—with individual personalities and intimate stories to provide a fresh perspective on what it means to be religiously and politically engaged. Zwissler also provides an insightful investigation into how religion and politics intersect for women on the political left.
Download or read book Iyanifa Women of Wisdom written by Ayele Kumari and published by Ayele Kumari. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iyanifa means Mother of Wisdom or Mother of Ifa. It is the position of the High Priestess in the Ifa Orisha tradition . The Ifa Orisha tradition of Africa is thousands of years old and was so strong, it was able to survive the slave trade to go on in the new world. What didn't survive the slave trade ,but remained in Africa was the position of Iyanifa. In a world where women have lost much of their ancient mysteries to patriarchy and slavery, a tradition is presented here that went underground but did not die. Iyanifas, Iyami, and Queen mothers of Africa resurface now to continue a legacy for new generations across the globe. This book is a collection of stories, essays, and explorations of the position of Iyanifa and its resurgence in the Diaspora. Gleaned from the perspective of the elder mothers who broke the glass ceiling to reclaim the tradition , they share their divine wisdom teachings, candid personal experiences, joys, and growing pains drawn from their lives as Iyanifas and women in the tradition. This volume of work features authors such as Luisah Teish, Iyanla Vanzant, Aina Olomo and many other powerful healers, diviners, and counselors. It is offered as a gift to women in the tradition and to those interested in Woman’s and African Studies to explore the path of Iyanifa and to be a resource for years to come.
Download or read book Yoruba Art and Language written by Rowland Abiodun and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-13 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Yoruba was one of the most important civilizations of sub-Saharan Africa. While the high quality and range of its artistic and material production have long been recognized, the art of the Yoruba has been judged primarily according to the standards and principles of Western aesthetics. In this book, which merges the methods of art history, archaeology, and anthropology, Rowland Abiodun offers new insights into Yoruba art and material culture by examining them within the context of the civilization's cultural norms and values and, above all, the Yoruba language. Abiodun draws on his fluency and prodigious knowledge of Yoruba culture and language to dramatically enrich our understanding of Yoruba civilization and its arts. The book includes a companion website with audio clips of the Yoruba language, helping the reader better grasp the integral connection between art and language in Yoruba culture.
Download or read book Women and New and Africana Religions written by Lillian Ashcraft-Eason and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-10-27 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the lives of women around the world from the perspective of the New and Africana faiths they practice. This probing and thought-provoking series of essays brings together in one volume the multifaceted experiences of women in the New and Africana religions as practiced today. With this work, religion becomes a lens for examining the lives of women of diverse ethnicities and nationalities across the social spectrum. In Women and New and Africana Religions, readers hear from women from a number of religious/spiritual persuasions around the world, including Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South America, and North America. These voices form the core of remarkable explorations of family and environment, social and spiritual empowerment, sexuality and power, and ways in which worldview informs roles in religion and society. Each essay includes scene-setting historical and social background information and fascinating insights from renowned scholars sharing their own research and firsthand experiences with their subjects.
Download or read book Rewriting Osun written by Jessica M. Alarcon and published by Torkwase Press Incorporated. This book was released on 2008 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known to practitioners and scholars as the Yoruba goddess of sweet (waters), sensuality, fertility and delight, Osun is a deity of great controversy. Nigerians see her as an astute, responsible mother of many children, yet across the ocean in the New World she has become a promiscuous, fun-loving deity who abandons her children and gives them to Yemaya to raise. Alarcns research analyzes the diverse representations of Osun (as a metaphor for women) found in trans-national Yoruba literature, specifically the verses of Odu Ifa (divination poetry) and Apataki (stories/legends), and examines the roles gender, race and sexuality have played in cultural interpretations of Osun and therefore on the journey of women throughout the diaspora. (Re)Writing Osun challenges us to move beyond the remnants of limited colonial interpretations of African spiritual practices and begin the process of (re)writing OsunS narrative. Book includes color photographs!
Download or read book Envisioning Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics written by Kameelah L. Martin and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twenty-first century, American popular culture increasingly makes visible the performance of African spirituality by black women. Disney’s Princess and the Frog and Pirates of the Caribbean franchise are two notable examples. The reliance on the black priestess of African-derived religion as an archetype, however, has a much longer history steeped in the colonial othering of Haitian Vodou and American imperialist fantasies about so-called ‘black magic’. Within this cinematic study, Martin unravels how religious autonomy impacts the identity, function, and perception of Africana women in the American popular imagination. Martin interrogates seventy-five years of American film representations of black women engaged in conjure, hoodoo, obeah, or Voodoo to discern what happens when race, gender, and African spirituality collide. She develops the framework of Voodoo aesthetics, or the inscription of African cosmologies on the black female body, as the theoretical lens through which to scrutinize black female religious performance in film. Martin places the genre of film in conversation with black feminist/womanist criticism, offering an interdisciplinary approach to film analysis. Positioning the black priestess as another iteration of Patricia Hill Collins’ notion of controlling images, Martin theorizes whether film functions as a safe space for a racial and gendered embodiment in the performance of African diasporic religion. Approaching the close reading of eight signature films from a black female spectatorship, Martin works chronologically to express the trajectory of the black priestess as cinematic motif over the last century of filmmaking. Conceptually, Martin recalibrates the scholarship on black women and representation by distinctly centering black women as ritual specialists and Black Atlantic spirituality on the silver screen.
Download or read book Osogbo and the Art of Heritage written by Peter Probst and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has the home of a Yoruba river goddess become a UNESCO World Heritage site and a global attraction? Every year, tens of thousands of people from around the world visit the sacred grove of Osun, Osogbo's guardian deity, to attend her festival. Peter Probst takes readers on a riveting journey to Osogbo. He explores the history of the Osogbo School, which helped introduce one style of African modern art to the West, and investigates its intimate connection with Osun, the role of art and religion in the changing world of Osogbo, and its prominence in the global arena.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology written by Roger S. Gottlieb and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2006-11-09 with total page 685 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecologically oriented visions of God, the Sacred, the Earth, and human beings. The proposed handbook will serve as the definitive overview of these exciting new developments. Divided into three main sections, the books essays will reflect the three dominant dimensions of the field. Part I will explore
Download or read book The Womanist Idea written by Layli Maparyan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-22 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following on the heels of The Womanist Reader, The Womanist Idea offers a comprehensive, systematic analysis of womanism, including a detailed discussion of the womanist worldview (cosmology, ontology, epistemology, logic, axiology, and methodology) and its implications for activism. From a womanist perspective, social and ecological change is necessarily undergirded by spirituality – as distinct from religion per se – which invokes a metaphysically informed approach to activism.
Download or read book African Oral Literature written by Howard James Jordan and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2024-04-10 with total page 723 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African Oral Literature: Its Philosophical Thoughts Conveyed in Yuruba Society explores the ways that the Yoruba people of Nigeria have made remarkable contributions to the world’s civilization. Yoruba philosophical, religious tenets, artistic tenets, ideas, and icons have helped to transform religious beliefs and practices and the arts. When considering the study of Yoruba oral traditions, one learns how its philosophical concepts are the bases for an interpretation of what constitutes their aesthetic performance in art forms. This book introduces distinguished Yoruba cultural historians documenting the full spectrum, which extends beyond the visual art form. Through oral tradition, the effigy with its ako naturalism is not judged for its photographic realism, but for its efficacy within the context of the ako traditional ceremony, which is intended to make the end of this life and the beginning of the next one honorable and dignifying for one's parents where good will is needed by those still on earth. About the Author Howard James Jordan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1948. He is a lifetime member of the following associations: The Buffalo Soldiers, 24th Infantry Regiment of New Jersey; The Buffalo Soldiers 9th & 10th Horse Cavalry Association of Baltimore, MD and Los Angeles, CA; Disabled American Veterans (DVA) and Veterans of Foreign Wars, Dept. of New Jersey. Howard’s hobbies include writing, reading history, dancing, roller skating, horseback riding, traveling, wood carving, and painting. He also taught art in Nigeria Secondary Schools, was a research assistant at Nigerian University, and taught special education in Philadelphia Public Schools.
