• "What most distinguishes 'A God of Justice?'is
that it firmly ushers the study of religion in African American
literature into the modern age by focusing on what most frames religious
reflection in the twentieth century: the renewed focus on evil and
suffering in a ghastly century and the religious doubt it has helped
engender. This is the first study that explores modern black literature
and religion, and the author handles crucial texts and authors with
creativity, insight, and aplomb."—Clarence Hardy, Dartmouth
University, author of James Baldwin’s God: Sex, Hope,
and Crisis in Black Holiness Culture
•"Brilliantly conceived. 'A God of Justice?'
is original and will become a model in the field of African American
literary studies and beyond."—Katherine Clay Bassard,
Virginia Commonwealth University, author of Spiritual Interrogations:
Culture, Gender, and Community in Early African American Women’s
Writing
|
“A God of Justice?”
The Problem of Evil in Twentieth-Century Black Literature |
| |
| Qiana J. Whitted |
| 248 pages, 6 x 9 |
| Cloth 978-0-8139-2796-1 • $55.00 |
| Paper 978-0-8139-2797-8 • $21.50 |
| May 2009 |
 |
Focusing on the representations of spiritual crisis in twentieth-century
African American fiction and autobiography, Qiana J. Whitted asks
how some of the most distinguished writers of this tradition wrestle
with the inexplicable nature of God and the experience of unmerited
natural and moral sufferings such as racial oppression. Although
this spiritual and existential dilemma of “the problem of
evil” is not unique to African Americans, writers such as
Countée Cullen, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Ernest Gaines,
Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison offer paradigmatic examples of
it in black life and culture after World War I. Whitted argues
that these spiritual struggles so often articulated through the
cry for divine justice are central to an understanding of modern
black literary engagements with religion. Chapters explore the
discourse of religious doubt and questioning through the crucified
black Christ and the mourner’s bench tropes, womanist spiritual
infidelity, and the humanist improvisations of blues narratives.
For too long, the author contends, literary critics have explained
this suffering through platitudes of endurance and communal redemption,
valorizing problematic notions of unquestioned faith and self-sacrifice.
By questioning what is at stake for African Americans who call
for divine justice, Whitted challenges the assumptions about African
American religiosity by revealing an alternative tradition of
narrative dissent and philosophical engagement. In doing so, she
broadens the horizons of critical inquiry in black literary and
cultural studies.
Qiana J. Whitted is Assistant Professor
of English at the University of South Carolina.
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