Conjuring Moments in African American Literature: Women, Spirit Work, and Other Such Hoodoo (Electronic book text)

The monograph engages the ways African American authors have shifted, recycled, and reinvented the conjure woman in twentieth century fiction, constructing a historiography of the conjure woman as a recurring literary archetype. I develop a new vocabulary and framework (conjuring moments) with which to articulate a critical discourse surrounding the black conjuring woman and the use of African-centered cosmologies as a trope in African American literature. I argue that within the last century, African American writers have subverted the negative connotation of women and spirit work through their literary expressions. The conjure woman figure has evolved as a bio-mythography used to resist the subjugation and marginalization of black women and provides critical socio-cultural commentary, a role currently unmatched by other black female models and characterizations.