Bahian white: the dispersion of candomblé imagery in the public sphere of bahia
ABSTRACTFor most of its history, candomble was a marginal and persecuted spirit possession cult. From the 1920s onward, however, the cult evolved into the “trademark” of Bahia, a state in northeastern Brazil. The color white—a spotless and impeccable white—has come to dominate the public face of the cult: evoking positive connotations such as cleanliness and purity, the color helped to portray candomble as the splendid cultural heritage of the Bahian state as well as a respectable African religion. However, the “politics of white” has always been intersected by a “poetics of white,” as Bahian artists, writers, and other image producers sought to destabilize the condoned meanings of white. Hinting at that which is absent from the impeccable surfaces of candomble's public appearance, this “poetics of white” produced a layered public understanding of the cult. As people engage in speculations over the “true” candomble that lies hidden behind its public facade, claims to be “in the know” reconfigure the notio...
Afro-Brazilian Cults in the Novels of Jorge Amado
ANY critical appraisal of Jorge Amado's novels invariably means a discussion of social consciousness, historical documentation, and poetic prose. Critics will apologetically mention Amado's lack of psychological penetration and then hasten to point out his lyricism and prowess as a story-teller. They may also apologize for the early politically oriented works, but they will certainly praise Amado's dramatic forcefulness and his identification with the common man. Unfortunately, in its enthusiasm, this criticism often passes lightly over the significance of the Bahian author's interpretation of Brazilian reality. Most commentators on his works limit themselves to a few preliminary remarks on his popular or folkloric sources without seeing a definite pattern in his use of certain Brazilian institutions. In spite of the fact that many students of Brazilian literature will agree that Jorge Amado is a serious regionalist and not merely a reporter on local color, much of what appears in the pages of such novels as Jubiabd and Mar morto receives the label of picturesque. Amado's use of Afro-Brazilian religious cults is a case in point. Most will agree that Afro-Brazilian culture imparts an exotic effect to Amado's works, but many make the mistake, first, of considering this as so much folklore, and, second, of not realizing the extent of Amado's involvement in the religious cults-an involvement that becomes more and more apparent with each novel. My task here will be to trace the development of the Afro-Brazilian cults in most of Jorge Amado's novels and show how he finds cultural and spiritual values as well as aesthetic expression in them. During that important period of his literary formation, in the late twenties and early thirties, Jorge Amado, along with other members of his generation, immersed himself in Bahian life. He mingled with the people in the dock area and narrow streets of colonial Salvador and
The Ethics of Listening: Cassette‐SermonAudition in Contemporary Egypt
In this article, I focus on the practice of listening to tape-recorded sermons among contemporary Muslims in Egypt as an exercise of ethical self-discipline. I analyze this practice in its relation to the formation of a sensorium: the visceral capacities enabling of the particular form of Muslim piety to which those who undertake the practice aspired. In focusing on both the homiletic techniques of preachers and the traditions of ethical audition that inform the contemporary practice of sermon listening, I explore how sermon listeners reconstruct their own knowledge, emotions, and sensibilities in accord with models of Islamic moral personhood. Normative models of moral personhood grounded in Islamic textual and practical traditions provide a point of reference for the task of ethical self-improvement. [embodiment, senses, disciplinary practice, reception, media, sermons, Islam]