"Soaked: Religion, Gender, and Theory through M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!"
Zong! (2008) is a poetry book by Trinidadian writer M. NourbeSe Philip that takes as its source material the words of an eighteenth-century legal case involving the slave ship crew members who threw enslaved persons overboard for purposes of insurance. Words, letters, and sounds in the 200-page poetry book come from the brief legal document Gregson v. Gilbert. While alluding to if not invoking various religious traditions, the poet claims to have been dictated the poetry by a dead figure of unspecified gender named Sataey Adamu Boateng. Therefore, Zong! invites a meditation on religious practice, gender (dis)formation, and theories of authorship, archive, and aesthetics.
Our discussion will be facilitated by Adrián Emmanuel Hernández-Acosta, Assistant Professor of Religion and Literature in the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School.
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