By Teresa N. Washington
"Washington writes supple and considerate prose and creatively integrates African and African-derived terminology, which by no means distract the reader. I examine Our moms, Our Powers, Our Texts not just an excellent examine, but additionally a version to be emulated." -- Ousseynou B. Traore, William Patterson University?j? is a Yoruba notice that indicates a religious chronic of enormous capability, in addition to the humans who workout that strength. even if either women and men may have ?j?, its proprietors and controllers are ladies, the literal and cosmic moms who're respected because the gods of society. due to its organization with lady strength, its invisibility and profundity, ?j? is frequently misconstrued as witchcraft. even though, as Teresa N. Washington issues out in Our moms, Our Powers, Our Texts, ?j? is primary to the Yoruba ethos and cosmology. not just does it underpin the options of production and creativity, yet as a strength of justice and retribution, ?j? is vital to social concord and stability. As Africans have been pressured into exile and enslavement, they took ?j? with them and endured its paintings of making, destroying, harming, and therapeutic within the New World.Washington seeks out ?j?'s subversive energy of production and new version in a various diversity of Africana texts, from either males and girls, from either oral and modern literature, and throughout house and time. She courses readers to an realizing of the symbolic, methodological, and non secular concerns which are important to special works by way of Africana writers yet are hardly ever elucidated by way of Western feedback. She starts off with an exam of the traditional kinds of ?j? in Yoruba tradition, which creates a framework for leading edge readings of vital works by means of Africana writers, together with Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Ben Okri, Wole Soyinka, Jamaica Kincaid, and Ntozake Shange. This wealthy research will entice readers of Africana literature, African faith and philosophy, feminist stories, and comparative literature.