African American religious (auto)biographies: the narratives of Sojourner Truth and Jarena Lee

• Autor(a) principal: Hanna Karolyne Souza Simões
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFMG
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1843/42854; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0387-2173
• topic: Sojourner Truth; Jarena Lee; (auto)biography; race; gender; religion; Truth, Sojourner, m. 1883. – Narrative of Sojourner Truth. – Crítica e interpretação; Lee, Jarena, 1783- - Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee – Crítica e interpretação; Literatura americana – Escritoras negras – História e crítica; Mulheres na literatura – Estados Unidos; Negros na literatura; Biografia (como forma literária); Religião e Literatura

The study of biographies and (auto)biographies explores how humans understand and give meaning to themselves, to Others, and to the world through writing. The writing of one's life and the life of another person is at first evaluated according to the veracity of what has been reported. Yet, the constant and necessary presence of fiction in (auto)biographies have as a key reason the violence and traumatic experiences that can be forgotten, omitted, or ignored. And in the case of African American narratives, the traumatic events must be blurred or softened in order to be “adequate” to the white readers’ taste. Hence, power, memory, and history play important roles in this thesis analysis as these concepts help to constitute the black subject’s identity as well as their collective identity. However, there are some crucial elements to understand what makes some (auto)biographies more promoted than others. Sojourner Truth and Olive Gilbert’s Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850) and Jarena Lee’s Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee (1849) are examples of works that have been excluded from (auto)biographical cannon. For instance, by answering the question: what does it mean to have two nineteenth century African American religious women publishing their life narratives against the period’s hegemonic thought, we examinate how aspects of gender, race and religion provide overlapping interpretations to their (auto)biographical literary constructions that enhance their transgressive and plural approaches. In light of this, this thesis explores the place of black women in society and how, notwithstanding the mediation of their experiences by labels society thrust onto them, these women constructed a place of resistance by reclaiming the hegemonic religious discourse and exposing the prejudices and oppression Christianity endorsed regarding both gender and race.