Abstract
Zora Neale Hurston, Haiti, and Their Eyes Were Watching God is a remarkably fascinating read for everyone ranging from those faintly acquainted with her work to those who have more closely studied Hurston and her literature. Zora Neale Hurston is a legendary writer, considered by many as a contributing pioneer to feminist thought and one who blended folklore of the black diaspora transnationally spanning the United States, Central America, and West Africa. With this literary work, each of the 10 chapters is crafted from a number of reputable contributing scholars. Each contributor brings a contextualized perspective and critical reflection on Hurston’s gendered literary work of Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), ranging from matters of character analyses to rearticulation of Voodoo metaphors in the context of black women. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938) is an account of Afro-Caribbean society, religion, and is given attention in this text also. Both texts were written during an overlapping period of Hurston having spent significant time in Haiti studying cultural folklore and the supernatural (Voodoo) as a social anthropologist. This literary contribution devoted to Hurston and her significant explorations in Haiti is organized in a way that builds on a feminist ethos, literary sophistication, and transnational African diaspora spiritual ties, including the West Indies with voodoo, the United States with hoodoo, and West Africa with voudun.
In each chapter, distinguished scholars provide reflective and artful analysis that intersects with Hurston’s work and sociocultural–spiritual practices of the people of the island of Haiti and people of African descent. Folklore research is placed front and center as a transformative lens of interpretation and understanding, as demonstrated in Hurston’s work. Additionally, the text is wrought with the theme of vindication of the “black” woman. A feminist framework is core in the critical analyses, as Vodun/voodoo/houdou is detailed as counteroppressive to the black woman. Further, the layers of feminist appraisal are illuminated by the extension of alternative, noninferior narrative of the sexual politics of being positioned as black and a woman in the broader context of voodoo beliefs.
The critical insights provided in Jenning’s text create the space for those in the social work profession to better understand the symbolic nature of non-Western cultural practices and an additional point of reference for understanding how marginalized populations create their own realities that are as valid and functional as can be conceived for practice. In addition, the feminist rhetoric affords the reader the opportunity to delve further into early 1930’s black feminist prose way before this perspective was recognized for its intellectual weight. As this text distinctly centers Hurston’s hallmark work, it also presents implications for understanding black consciousness and the inception of black feminist ideology and politics.
It is clear that the book aims to spur cross-discipline intellectual dialogue, whereby as readers progress in each chapter there is differentiation in analysis and a new contextual lens for elevating one’s literary, social, and cognitive consciousness simultaneously. It is a marvel how this text links Hurston’s work of Their Eyes Were Watching God, with modernism with its attempt to challenge perceptions deemed conventional. This book is contemporary yet a treat for the ages.
This text is relevant for social work education, as it tackles areas of feminism and black women and their resistance to conventional gender oppression through an alternative culture, that is, voodoo/voudon practices. A wealth of discussion emerges from reading and critically reflecting on this text that contributes to a higher understanding of cultural bias, gender stratification, racial stratification, and dominant Western culture and assumptions.