Trances, Dances and Vociferations: Agency and Resistance in Africana Women's Narratives [Hardcover]

Trances, Dances and Vociferations provides a compelling feminist analysis of gender politics in the works of four major Africana women writers: Toni Morrison, Michelle Cliff, Assia Djebar, and Paule Marshall. Nada Elia explores the way in which black women characters use conjuring, double entendre, and song to empower, liberate and determine their own female insurgency. She also explains how African and Afrodiasporic women have been forced to rewrite history and substitute a communal and individual wholeness for alienation and separation in many different settings, from Algeria to Oklahoma. Ranging over works including Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, Djebar's A Sister to Scheherazade, Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven and Morrison's Jazz and Beloved, Elia offers essential and provocative insights into the works of some of our most influential Africana women authors today.Nada Elia is Scholar-in-Residence and Visiting Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies at Brown University.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Titles 1. Introduction: Pre-Text: In the beginning all was sound 2. The Fourth Language: Subaltern Expression in Assia Djebar's Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade and A Sister to Scheherazade. 3. The Memories of Old Women: Alternative History in Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven and Free Enterprise 4. I'm Breaking My Vow of Silence: Reclaiming Speech in Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow and Daughters 5. Under the Weight of Memory and Music: Contact Zones and Healing in Morrison's Song of Solomon and Paradise 6. Conclusion: With Nomad Memory and Intermittent Voice: The Africana Women's Aesthetic Tradition Works Consulted IndexUSCopyright ? 2001 by Nada Elia