I SPEAK FOR MYSELF
Readers of I Speak for Myself are presented with a kaleidoscope of stories, woven together around the central idea of limitlessness and individuality. A common theme linking these intimate self-portraits is the way each woman uniquely defies labeling, simply by defining for herself what it means to be American and Muslim and female.
This book serves as a source of inspiration and education for people of other faiths who are interested in learning more about what it is like to be Muslim in America, as well as Muslim women themselves. Some of the issues explored include the balance of Western values with Islamic ones; whether adopting the veil can be an obstacle in the professional arena; expressing oneself as a Muslim within society; and political engagement.The essays featured in I Speak for Myself are not intended to be reactionary to the current climate of suspicion towards Islam in America, but they certainly address such suspicion in a very personal way. The contributors embody real everyday American women who struggle with their faith while balancing their careers and private life. Some are public about their faith and include their knowledge of it in their professional endeavors. Others keep faith and profession separate. Some are working to change their fellow Americans’ views of Islam, while others are still trying to find their own religious identities. Some stories are so deeply personal you feel you’re reading a private journal entry rather than an essay.
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Second Edition of
Creole Religions of the Caribbean
Posted by: lisaparavisini | June 11, 2011
New York University Press is about to release the second and much expanded edition of Creole Religions of the Caribbean, which I published first in 2003 with my dear colleague Margarite Fernández Olmos. It has a new preface by Joseph M. Murphy and a cool new cover.
Here’s the description from the publisher:
Creolization—the coming together of diverse beliefs and practices to form new beliefs and practices—is one of the most significant phenomena in Caribbean religious history. Brought together in the crucible of the sugar plantation, Caribbean peoples drew on the variants of Christianity brought by European colonizers, as well as on African religious and healing traditions and the remnants of Amerindian practices, to fashion new systems of belief.
Creole Religions of the Caribbean offers a comprehensive introduction to the syncretic religions that have developed in the region. From Vodou, Santer’a, Regla de Palo, the Abakuá Secret Society, and Obeah to Quimbois and Espiritismo, the volume traces the historical–cultural origins of the major Creole religions, as well as the newer traditions such as Pocomania and Rastafarianism. This second edition updates the scholarship on the religions themselves and also expands the regional considerations of the Diaspora to the U. S. Latino community who are influenced by Creole spiritual practices. Fernández Olmos and Paravisini–Gebert also take into account the increased significance of material culture—art, music, literature—and healing practices influenced by Creole religions.
And here are some comments from early reviewers:
“Fernández Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert write with evident expertise, keen to uphold our understandings of how the major Creole spiritualities—everything from Vodou to Rastafari—have always dynamically adapted to change to ensure their survival and flourishing. This second edition is, in short, an extraordinarily rich work for scholars and students alike; it is certain to become the field’s standard text.”
“Brings to life the living and lively religious traditions of Caribbean peoples. This new edition offers to scholars and students of Caribbean religions and cultures an illuminating introduction to religious continuity, change, and creativity in the Caribbean region in the past 500 years, especially among the Afro-Caribbean population.”
“Offers a unique perspective on Caribbean religions and provides well-reasoned explanations for the diverse ways in which African religious traditions were adapted to a new cultural milieu in the diaspora…. A brilliant book and a significant contribution to the literature on Caribbean religions. In short, it leaves no stone unturned.”
You can find the book at http://www.amazon.com/Creole-Religions-Caribbean-IntroductionEditionForeword/dp/081476228X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1307383092&sr=1-2
>via: http://repeatingislands.com/2011/06/11/second-edition-of-creole-religions-of-...
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Too Much Boogie:
Erotic Remixes of the Dirty Blues
Publisher: Logical-Lust Publications (263 pages)
Cole Riley, an author of erotica in his own right, has written several street classics including Hot Smoke Night, The Devil to Pay, and the recent Harlem Confidential.Using the lyrics of dirty Blues sung by some of the more famous singers such as Bukka White, Bessie Smith, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mr. Riley teases the reader into the upper chambers of brothels, lovers’ hideaways, bedrooms, and back rooms for the mating game. In his own words, “Called the Devil’s Music, the stories of the blues go beyond jump turns, slow drag ditties, reel, jigs, minstrel songs, ragtime, or the buzzard lope.”
His superbly chosen selections include some of the best writers of erotica. Included are Alegra Verde, Kevin James Breaux, D. L. King, Jayme Whitfield, and Nick Nicholson. The stories begin and end within themselves, yet when viewed together they weave more than tales of heavy breathing, lust, and rampant sex. They create an indelible impression of a time gone by—an impression of a lifestyle, rich and hot as any blues song sung on a sultry night. One senses—no—one feels the tension of the splayed lives seeking their place and hoping for more.
Mr. Riley’s collection is an intimate portrayal of sexual abandonment, virile men, seductive women as well as the hurt and betrayal of promised love.
The collection is not for everyone, especially those who are offended by the vivid description of the sex act or by the use of the F word. Get past that, and you are caught up in a cry—a cry by human beings who hope life has more to offer than it has.
At the 2011 book launch last night (June 2) at the Curacao World Trade Center, the Caribbean Studies Association announced the winner of the Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Award: Anne-Marie Lee-Loy’s Searching for Mr. Chin: Constructions of Nation and the Chinese in West Indian Literature(Temple University Press, 2010).
This yearly award was established to honor the memory of distinguished Caribbeanists Gordon K. Lewis and Sybil Lewis. It is granted to the best book about the Caribbean published over the previous three-year period in Spanish, English, French or Dutch. The nominated book should approach the chosen subject or aspect of Caribbean life conditions and situations from an interdisciplinary perspective, and should clearly show to have regional impact.
Publisher’s description:
What do twentieth-century fictional images of the Chinese reveal about the construction of nationhood in the former West Indian colonies? In her groundbreaking interdisciplinary work, Searching for Mr. Chin, Anne-Marie Lee-Loy seeks to map and understand a cultural process of identity formation: “Chineseness” in the West Indies. Reading behind the stereotypical image of the Chinese in the West Indies, she compares fictional representations of Chinese characters in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Guyana to reveal the social and racial hierarchies present in literature by popular authors such as V.S. Naipaul and Samuel Selvon, as well as lesser known writers and hard to access literary texts.
Using historical, discursive, and theoretical frameworks for her literary analysis, Lee-Loy shows how the unstable and ambiguous “belonging” afforded to this “middleman minority” speaks to the ways in which narrative boundaries of the nation are established. In addition to looking at how Chinese have been viewed as “others,” Lee-Loy examines self-representations of “Chineseness” and how they complicate national narratives of belonging.
Anne-Marie Lee-Loy is a literary and cultural scholar of the Anglo-Caribbean and its diaspora with a particular interest in the experiences of Chinese Caribbeans. She currently teaches in the English Department at Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada).
For purchasing information, see http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2061_reg.html
Photo and biography from http://www.creativecaribbeannetwork.com/person/15148