Sacraments of memory : Catholicism and slavery in contemporary African American literature /
Salius, Erin Michael,
Sacraments of memory : Catholicism and slavery in contemporary African American literature / Erin Michael Salius Universi. - 1 online resource (217 pages)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-216) and index.
Introduction: Towards a reading of the Catholic margin in contemporary narratives of slavery -- Toni Morrison's sacramental rememory -- A sacred communion -- Catholicism and narrative time -- Catholicism and narrative time, continued.
"This study argues that Catholicism informs a major genre of African American literature in ways and with a significance that has gone largely unrecognized. Since their emergence in the 1960s and 1970s, contemporary narratives of slavery have challenged the traditional historiography of American slavery, radically revising how we remember that "peculiar institution." These fictional works disrupt the form and content of slave autobiography, suggesting that the conventions of Enlightenment rationalism to which antebellum texts were bound could not adequately represent the experience and memory of enslavement. Scholarship on the genre has thus tended to focus on the way it undermines the rationalizing impulse of Enlightenment discourse, which in the U.S. as well as in Europe was determined by the ideals of the Protestant Reformation. But while the scholarly attention to Protestantism has yielded valuable insights, it cannot account for the striking presence of Catholicism at the margins of these texts, nor for the way that the religion is imaginatively linked to radical moments of historical revision. Sacraments of Memory thus proposes a new framework for understanding the revisionist aims of these works, contextualizing the skepticism they exhibit towards historical realism in terms of a Catholic counter-tradition in American literature that has long been associated with superstition and irrationality. The authors in the books all marshal this anti-Enlightenment orientation of Catholicism to disrupt the conventional historiography of American slavery and, this book argues, ultimately, to imagine and embody radically different means of remembering the past."--Provided by publisher.
9780813052304 0813052300
5354029 Proquest Ebook Central 22573/ctvwwf3dk JSTOR
Chiesa cattolica
Catholic Church
Slavery and the church.
American literature--African American authors--History.
Slavery in literature.
Catholics in literature.
African Americans in literature.
Esclavage dans la littérature.
Catholiques dans la littérature.
Noirs américains dans la littérature.
LITERARY CRITICISM--American--General.
LITERARY CRITICISM--American--African American.
Slavery and the church
African Americans in literature
American literature--African American authors
Catholics in literature
Slavery in literature
History
PS508.N3 / S25 2018eb
810.9/3828208996073
Sacraments of memory : Catholicism and slavery in contemporary African American literature / Erin Michael Salius Universi. - 1 online resource (217 pages)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-216) and index.
Introduction: Towards a reading of the Catholic margin in contemporary narratives of slavery -- Toni Morrison's sacramental rememory -- A sacred communion -- Catholicism and narrative time -- Catholicism and narrative time, continued.
"This study argues that Catholicism informs a major genre of African American literature in ways and with a significance that has gone largely unrecognized. Since their emergence in the 1960s and 1970s, contemporary narratives of slavery have challenged the traditional historiography of American slavery, radically revising how we remember that "peculiar institution." These fictional works disrupt the form and content of slave autobiography, suggesting that the conventions of Enlightenment rationalism to which antebellum texts were bound could not adequately represent the experience and memory of enslavement. Scholarship on the genre has thus tended to focus on the way it undermines the rationalizing impulse of Enlightenment discourse, which in the U.S. as well as in Europe was determined by the ideals of the Protestant Reformation. But while the scholarly attention to Protestantism has yielded valuable insights, it cannot account for the striking presence of Catholicism at the margins of these texts, nor for the way that the religion is imaginatively linked to radical moments of historical revision. Sacraments of Memory thus proposes a new framework for understanding the revisionist aims of these works, contextualizing the skepticism they exhibit towards historical realism in terms of a Catholic counter-tradition in American literature that has long been associated with superstition and irrationality. The authors in the books all marshal this anti-Enlightenment orientation of Catholicism to disrupt the conventional historiography of American slavery and, this book argues, ultimately, to imagine and embody radically different means of remembering the past."--Provided by publisher.
9780813052304 0813052300
5354029 Proquest Ebook Central 22573/ctvwwf3dk JSTOR
Chiesa cattolica
Catholic Church
Slavery and the church.
American literature--African American authors--History.
Slavery in literature.
Catholics in literature.
African Americans in literature.
Esclavage dans la littérature.
Catholiques dans la littérature.
Noirs américains dans la littérature.
LITERARY CRITICISM--American--General.
LITERARY CRITICISM--American--African American.
Slavery and the church
African Americans in literature
American literature--African American authors
Catholics in literature
Slavery in literature
History
PS508.N3 / S25 2018eb
810.9/3828208996073