View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarlyCommons@Penn University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2018 Personified rP eaching: Black Feminist Sermonic Practice In Literature And Music Melanie R. Hill University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Music Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Hill, Melanie R., "Personified Preaching: Black Feminist Sermonic Practice In Literature And Music" (2018). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2884. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2884 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2884 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Personified rP eaching: Black Feminist Sermonic Practice In Literature And Music Abstract ABSTRACT PERSONIFIED PREACHING: BLACK FEMINIST SERMONIC PRACTICE IN LITERATURE AND MUSIC Melanie R. Hill Dr. Herman Beavers Dr. Salamishah Tillet What does it mean when African-American culture and black rhetoric are gendered in preacherly performance discourse? This dissertation is an interdisciplinary analysis of the presence of black women preachers in both twentieth and twenty-first century African-American literature, music, and religion. Though scholarship in African-American literary and cultural studies has examined the importance of voice in black women’s cultural production, the cultural figure of the black woman preacher in literature, music, and the pulpit remains unstudied as a focus of current scholarship. Building upon the work that has been done by scholars in sound studies, this dissertation uses music to make an interdisciplinary intervention among the intersections of African-American literary criticism, music, and religious studies. Using the sermon as a literary genre, this project seeks to undertake a close examination of the black woman preacher in all three realms of discursive practice as a way of troubling the static boundary separating the sacred and the secular, sanctified and sacreligious. By looking at the exegetical, eschatological, and pedagogical elements of black feminist sermonic practice, I investigate how performance of the sermon is personified through the black woman preacher’s emphasis on musicality, expressivity, thematic relevance, and improvisatory phrasing. By formulating a methodology that seeks to think critically about how black feminist sermonic practice occurs in the intersections of black feminism/womanism and oral performativity in both sermon and song, I work to help readers think differently about how the sermonic space empowers the black woman preacherly figure to utilize the sermon to speak on issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Black feminist sermonic practice looks at the heteroglossic functions of black women preachers in literature and music in order to show how they use their sermons to create a “chromatic” space that amalgamates both sermon and song. Further, this dissertation proves black feminist sermonic practice seeks to foreground notions of value, transformation, healing, and communal empowerment. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group English This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2884 First Advisor Herman Beavers Second Advisor Salamishah Tillet Keywords Black Feminism, Literature, Music, Preaching, Religion, Spirituality Subject Categories Music | Religion This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2884 PERSONIFIED PREACHING: BLACK FEMINIST SERMONIC PRACTICE IN LITERATURE AND MUSIC COPYRIGHT 2018 Melanie R. Hill For my grandmothers, Ella Mae Whitmore, Willie Mae Hill, and beautiful mother, Sharon L. Whitmore Hill. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I give all glory and honor to God for His abundant grace in my life and for seeing me through my doctoral journey. I thank my mother, Sharon, who has been my constant guiding light and source of continuous support in my life and educational journey. I’m also thankful for the strong women in my life who have encouraged me: Elaine Little and Mildred Ellison. I thank my committee members, Dr. Herman Beavers, Dr. Salamishah Tillet, and Dr. Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. for their advice and support. I also want to acknowledge the black women preachers I have interviewed for this dissertation, some of whose names I have listed here, who represent pillars of strength and whose diligence in ministry and social justice has not gone unnoticed: Bishop Dr. Barbara M. Amos, Dr. Sharon S. Riley, Bishop Dr. Vashti M. McKenzie, Bishop Audrey F. Bronson, Dr. Renee McKenzie, Pastor Brenda Billingy, Bishop Dr. Millicent Hunter, Bishop Rosette Coney, Reverend Dr. Crystal J. Lucky, and Reverend Dr. Leslie D. Callahan. iv ABSTRACT PERSONIFIED PREACHING: BLACK FEMINIST SERMONIC PRACTICE IN LITERATURE AND MUSIC Melanie R. Hill Dr. Herman Beavers Dr. Salamishah Tillet What does it mean when African-American culture and black rhetoric are gendered in preacherly performance discourse? This dissertation is an interdisciplinary analysis of the presence of black women preachers in both twentieth and twenty-first century African-American literature, music, and religion. Though scholarship in African- American literary and cultural studies has examined the importance of voice in black women’s cultural production, the cultural figure of the black woman preacher in literature, music, and the pulpit remains unstudied as a focus of current scholarship. Building upon the work that has been done by scholars in sound studies, this dissertation uses music to make an interdisciplinary intervention among the intersections of African- American literary criticism, music, and religious studies. Using the sermon as a literary genre, this project seeks to undertake a close examination of the black woman preacher in all three realms of discursive practice as a way of troubling the static boundary separating the sacred and the secular, sanctified and sacreligious. By looking at the exegetical, eschatological, and pedagogical elements of black feminist sermonic practice, I investigate how performance of the sermon is personified through the black woman v preacher’s emphasis on musicality, expressivity, thematic relevance, and improvisatory phrasing. By formulating a methodology that seeks to think critically about how black feminist sermonic practice occurs in the intersections of black feminism/womanism and oral performativity in both sermon and song, I work to help readers think differently about how the sermonic space empowers the black woman preacherly figure to utilize the sermon to speak on issues of race, class, gender and sexuality. Black feminist sermonic practice looks at the heteroglossic functions of black women preachers in literature and music in order to show how they use their sermons to create a “chromatic” space that amalgamates both sermon and song. Further, this dissertation proves black feminist sermonic practice seeks to foreground notions of value, transformation, healing, and communal empowerment. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT………………………………………………………..IV ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………..V PREFACE…………………………………………………………………………VIII CHAPTER 1……………………………………………………………………….1 CHAPTER 2……………………………………………………………………….30 CHAPTER 3……………………………………………………………………….73 CHAPTER 4……………………………………………………………………….111 NOTES……………………………………………………………………………..142 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………................154 vii PREFACE “Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin’ on high, but they wasn’t no pulpit for me. Freedom found me wid a baby daughter in mah arms...Ah been waitin’ a long time, Janie, but nothin’ Ah been through ain’t too much if you just take a stand on high ground lak Ah dreamed.” -Nanny in Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) “There are some things that cross all sacred texts: caring for the vulnerable, love of neighbor as love of self. At a time when those basic principles are under assault, all faiths must come together, not in uniformity, but in unity around what we all hold sacred.” -Reverend Traci Blackmon (2017) The second epigraph above is a quote from Reverend Traci Blackmon, senior pastor of Christ the King Church in Florissant, Missouri and executive minister of justice and witness ministries of the United Church of Christ, several weeks after pusillanimous white Nazis came in droves to the University of Virginia’s campus, shouting inglorious epithets. White supremacists planned a meeting in Charlottesville and with diminutive, flaming tiki torches flooded the University’s grounds and surrounding areas. Proximal to UVA’s Grounds, Reverend Blackmon led an interfaith service Friday evening, August 11th, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Charlottesville where clergymen, clergywomen, and scholars alike sang hymns and songs, preparing hearts for what awaited them outside St. Paul’s doors. In an article written by Elizabeth Adetiba in In These Times, Adetiba interviews Blackmon on her Charlottesville experience.1 At a time when the faces of male preachers, male clergy, and in particular black male preachers are synonymous with social justice movements, it is the countenance of Reverend Traci Blackmon that covers the sites of the Charlottesville protest against white supremacy. Pictured with Reverend viii Dr. William J. Barber, minister, professor, activist,