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Characterizing Olaudah Equiano's eighteenth-century narrative of his life as a type of ''scriptural story'' that connects the Bible with identity formation, This book probes not only how the Bible and its reading played a crucial role in the first colonial contacts between black and white persons in the North Atlantic but also the process and meaning of what he terms ''scripturalization.''
List of contents
- Contents
- Prologue
- Chapter One: "unbounded influence over the credulity and superstition of the people":
- Magic as Slavery, Slavery as Magic
- Chapter Two: "the white men had some spell or magic":
- A Black Stranger's First Contact with White Men's Magic
- Chapter Three: "every person there read the Bible":
- Scripturalization as Matrix of White Men's Magic
- Chapter Four: "to the Britons first the Gospel is preached":
- Scripturalization in the Nationalization of White Men's Magic
- Chapter Five: "in the Bible, I saw things new":
- Scripturalization and the Mimetics of White Men's Magic
- Chapter Six: "take the book and tell God to make them dead":
- Scripturalization as White Men's Hegemony
- Chapter Seven: "I could read it for myself":
- Scripturalization, Slavery, and Agency
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Vincent L. Wimbush is Professor of Religion and Director of the Institute for Signifying Scriptures at Claremont Graduate University.
Summary
Characterizing Olaudah Equiano's eighteenth-century narrative of his life as a type of ''scriptural story'' that connects the Bible with identity formation, This book probes not only how the Bible and its reading played a crucial role in the first colonial contacts between black and white persons in the North Atlantic but also the process and meaning of what he terms ''scripturalization.''
Additional text
White Men's Magic profoundly transforms studies of the encounters between the North Atlantic and Black African worlds. In challenging the canonical reading of scriptures, Wimbush invents a new word. 'Scripturalization' is his inspired term to explicate the normalization of constructed meanings, veiling the social and political forces that control their interpretation. Wimbush's innovative method ties the life of the Bible irrevocably to the wider history of slavery and transatlantic movements. The black slave Equiano's autobiography will never be read in the same way again.
