Ecology, Spirituality, and Cosmology in Edwidge Danticat: Crossroads as Ritual examines the form and function of ritual in four of Danticat's fictional works-The Dew Breaker; The Farming of Bones; Claire of the Sea Light; and Breath, Eyes, Memory-to reveal how these texts create textual topography that heals and clarifies Africana consciousness. Filtering ritual through the symbolic iconography of the cosmogram and Africana women's literary tradition, Joyce White investigates modern articulations of the cosmogram's cosmological and philosophical iterations within the life and existence of Africana people and establishes set systems and beliefs that are manifest through ritual practices. White argues that emblemed by the cruciform symbol of the crossroads, the cosmogram within Danticat's texts emanates extendable textual, liminal, and ritualized spaces through the inscription of the symbol that exists within and without the boundaries of pagination. The extension of textual landscape expands the borders and boundaries of a given text and provides additional space for contemplation and rumination incongruent to those spaces in its common and normal iterations.
Joyce White is assistant professor of English in Gullah Geechee Literature and Cultures at Georgia Southern University.
Contents Introduction: Home is Where the Healing Is: Ritual Pathways to Home Chapter 1: They Did Not Come Alone: Towards a Theoretical Framework Chapter 2: At the Crossroads: Rituals of Death in Danticat's The Dew Breaker Chapter 3: Lot Bot Dlo (The Other Side of The Water): Examining the Cosmogram in Danticat's The Farming of Bones Chapter 4: A Seat at The Table: Constructing Identity in Danticat's Claire of the Sea Light Chapter 5: "May These Words Bring Wings to Your Feet": Re-membering Ancestral Healing in Breath, Eyes, Memory Conclusion: Existing Beyond the Gaze: Finding Home in the Works of Edwidge Danticat
"As an extended exploration of the cosmogram in four of Edwidge Danticat's best-known novels, Ecology, Spirituality, and Cosmology in Edwidge Danticat: Crossroads as Ritual makes a powerful case that Black life in diaspora is a recursive, cyclical, cosmologically unique experience singular to African peoples. Through a critical study of the narrative and spiritual functions of crossroads, pathways, bridges, passages, and intersections, Joyce White brilliantly illuminates how Danticat creates in her fictional worlds both figurative and literal homelands for Africana women, whose radical spiritual healing communities enable diasporic peoples to survive and thrive. White's insistence on the importance of Africana spiritual traditions to Black women's existence in diaspora is always illuminating and inspiring, shedding light on too-often neglected discourses of healing and community that have always animated Black life in diaspora. White's book is a must-read for scholars interested in Danticat's extensive treatment of magic, cosmology, and spirituality in lives of Africana diasporic women." -- Joanna Davis-McElligatt, University of North Texas "This book, framing Danticat's works as a project of cosmological reclamation, accomplishes a deep examination of how the crossroads-as structure and metaphor-inform the author's rendering of the embodied, geographic, and spiritual dimensions of diaspora. White's important work underscores ritual as central to engendering African survivals in the Americas." -- Maia L. Butler, Edwidge Danticat Society, Founding Vice President
