Synopses & Reviews
Womanist approaches to the study of religion and society have contributed much to our understanding of Black religious life, activism, and women's liberation.
Deeper Shades of Purple explores the achievements of this movement over the past two decades and evaluates some of the leading voices and different perspectives within this burgeoning field.
Deeper Shades of Purple brings together a who's who of scholars in the study of Black women and religion who view their scholarship through a womanist critical lens. The contributors revisit Alice Walker's definition of womanism for its viability for the approaches to discourses in religion of Black women scholars. Whereas Walker has defined what it means to be womanist, these contributors define what it means to practice womanism, and illuminate how womanism has been used as a vantage point for the theoretical orientations and methodological approaches of Black women scholar-activists.
Contributors: Karen Baker-Fletcher, Katie G. Cannon, M. Shawn Copeland, Kelly Brown Douglas, Carol B. Duncan, Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, Rachel Elizabeth Harding, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, Melanie L. Harris, Diana L. Hayes, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Kwok Pui-Lan, Daisy L. Machado, Debra Majeed, Anthony B. Pinn, Rosetta Ross, Letty M. Russell, Shani Settles, Dianne M. Stewart, Raedorah Stewart-Dodd, Emilie M. Townes, Traci C. West, and Nancy Lynne Westfield.
Review
"A stunningly original work that carries 'womanist' and 'womanism' to a new level of thinking. . . . It not only provides multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to the womanist idea but charts path-breaking directions for religious thought, ethics, and cultural analysis." - Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, author of If It Wasn't for the Women: Black Women's Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community
Review
Drawing on a wealth of womanist criticism that rekindles Walker's Womanism, this valuable collection of essays brings together a wide range of womanists and womanist perspectives from different sectors, providing readers with an excellent list of references on the theme of Womanism and womanist activities. - Jaehwan Han, African American Review
Review
"A must-have collection for readers who want to see womanist theology in all of its rich purple hues." - WATERwheel
Review
"An important and fine collection... The volume is marked by its inclusiveness of ideas and not just from the perspectives of black women." - Christianity and Literature
Review
“An important collection of the leading scholars in Womanist religion, ethics and theology. A must read!”
- James H. Cone, Union Theological Seminary
“A stunningly original work that carries ‘womanist and ‘womanism to a new level of thinking. . . . It not only provides multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to the womanist idea but charts path-breaking directions for religious thought, ethics, and cultural analysis.”
- Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, author of If It Wasn't for the Women: Black Womens Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community
“Drawing on a wealth of womanist criticism that rekindles Walkers Womanism, this valuable collection of essays brings together a wide range of womanists and womanist perspectives from different sectors, providing readers with an excellent list of references on the theme of Womanism and womanist activities.”
- Jaehwan Han, African American Review “A must-have collection for readers who want to see womanist theology in all of its rich purple hues.”
- WATERwheel “An important and fine collection. . . The volume is marked by its inclusiveness of ideas and not just from the perspectives of black women”
- Christianity and Literature
Review
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas is to be commended for bringing together such a powerful group of religious scholars who practice, define, and critique womanist theoretical discourse.
“An important collection of the leading scholars in Womanist religion, ethics and theology. A must read!”
“A stunningly original work that carries ‘womanist’ and ‘womanism’ to a new level of thinking. . . . It not only provides multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to the womanist idea but charts path-breaking directions for religious thought, ethics, and cultural analysis.”
“Drawing on a wealth of womanist criticism that rekindles Walker’s Womanism, this valuable collection of essays brings together a wide range of womanists and womanist perspectives from different sectors, providing readers with an excellent list of references on the theme of Womanism and womanist activities.”
“A must-have collection for readers who want to see womanist theology in all of its rich purple hues.”
Review
"Having learned much from this book, I commend it to readers as first-rate legal history, as a distinguished contribution to the understanding of the Holocaust in France, and also as a cautionary tale." -Michael R. Marrus,author of Vichy France and the Jews
Synopsis
A collection of leading voices on the study of Black women in religious life
Womanist approaches to the study of religion and society have contributed much to our understanding of Black religious life, activism, and women's liberation. Deeper Shades of Purple explores the achievements of this movement over the past two decades and evaluates some of the leading voices and different perspectives within this burgeoning field.
Deeper Shades of Purple brings together a who's who of scholars in the study of Black women and religion who view their scholarship through a womanist critical lens. The contributors revisit Alice Walker's definition of womanism for its viability for the approaches to discourses in religion of Black women scholars. Whereas Walker has defined what it means to be womanist, these contributors define what it means to practice womanism, and illuminate how womanism has been used as a vantage point for the theoretical orientations and methodological approaches of Black women scholar-activists.
Contributors: Karen Baker-Fletcher, Katie G. Cannon, M. Shawn Copeland, Kelly Brown Douglas, Carol B. Duncan, Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, Rachel Elizabeth Harding, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, Melanie L. Harris, Diana L. Hayes, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ada Mar a Isasi-D az, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Kwok Pui-Lan, Daisy L. Machado, Debra Majeed, Anthony B. Pinn, Rosetta Ross, Letty M. Russell, Shani Settles, Dianne M. Stewart, Raedorah Stewart-Dodd, Emilie M. Townes, Traci C. West, and Nancy Lynne Westfield.
Synopsis
The involvement of Vichy France with Nazi Germany's efforts to exterminate Europe's Jews has long been a source of debate and contention. At a time when France is taking more responsibility for its role in the deportation and murder of 75,000 of its Jewish citizens, Richard Weisberg here provides a comprehensive and devastating account of the French legal system's complicity with Hitler's genocidal campaign during the dark period known as Vichy.
As in Germany, the exclusionary laws passed during the Vichy period formalized institutional anti-semitism. In Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France, Weisberg pulls back the curtain on the ways in which the legal community responded to these laws. Private lawyers quickly absorbed the discourse of religious exclusion into the conventional legal framework, expanding the laws beyond their simple intentions, their literal sense, and even their German precedents. Anti-Jewish laws slipped easily and with little resistance into the legal canon and French lawyers often enlisted the laws as a means of career advancement. Examining the work of lawyers and judges, policy makers and administrators, prosecutors and defenders, reporters and academics, Weisberg reveals how legalized persecution actually operated on a practical level.
For a discussion about this book at the Amgot web site, please go tohttp://www.amgot.org/weisberg.htm
About the Author
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas is associate professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Her books include Mining the Motherlode: Methods in Womanist Ethics, Black Church Studies: An Introduction and Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society (NYU Press, 2007).