Deadline: 15 February 2011
YẸMỌNJA: Water Goddess, Fluidity and Tradition is a volume that reflects an interest in exploring the international Yorùbá deity Yemonja in her multiple manifestations. As with the Indiana University Press's previous series on ọ̀rìṣa traditions, including those on Ogun, Osun and Sango, this volume seeks to unearth the multi-dimensional nature of religious work and cultural production about Yemonja in Africa and the African Diaspora. Contributions from scholars, practitioners, and artists involved with Yoruba traditional religion, Santería or Ocha, Candomblé, Vodoun, Trinidadian Orisha Traditions, The American Yoruba Movement, Ifa, Espiritísmo, Mucumba, Folk Catholicism, Curanderismo, Palo, and other intersections of religious and cultural practices involving Yemonja are encouraged to submit to the volume.
Yemonja is known in mythology and Afro-Atlantic cultures for her domination of natural phenomenon, especially aquatic zones of communication, trade and transportation like the ocean, rivers, and lagoons. She is also associated with the societal aspects of culture in motherhood, women, the arts, and the family. She is called by multiple names in transnational sites: Yemaya in Cuba, Yemanjá, Iemanjá, Janaína in Brazil, as well as being associated with other water deities like Olókùn in Nigeria, and Mami Wata across West and Central Africa. Her close relationship to the river deity ọ̀ṣun has been explored in Cabrera's Yemayá y Ochún, as well as discussed in Sanford and Murphy's ọ̀ṣun Across the Waters. Scholars such as Henry Drewal, Margaret Drewal, and Babatunde Lawal have connected Yemonja to the Gẹl̀ẹ̀dẹ́ festival of Ketu, especially in relation to the origins of understanding gender and female power in ọ̀rìṣa art and performances. With these connections in mind, we are interested in how traditions surrounding
Yemonja have been creolized, hybridized, and combined with other traditions, like Folk Catholicism, Vodoun, and Congo traditional religions in both Africa and the African Diaspora. It is with this broad and integrated understanding that we invite contributions that move forward conversations between the disciplines and areas that Yemonja touches.
We are especially interested in works that remark upon connections between North America, Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean that forge new understandings of history, religion, performance, art, and gender. Yemonja traditions are constantly changing and in flux in a manner that presents a template for understanding societal and cultural change, hybridity, and reconfiguration, with a special eye towards how these processes go hand in hand with the construction of gender in Africa and the African Diaspora. Thus, the volume will present essays that especially explore Yemonja's role in providing a space for secrecy, creativity, and play in the construction of gender and motherhood. That being said, we also welcome works that challenge and reconfigure canonical representations of Yemonja in terms of gender, society, and the family. Due to the range of geographical and cultural contexts the volume embodies, we encourage work that looks at the transnational connections between Yemonja aesthetics broadly: in history, theory, sociology, literary criticism, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, storytelling, divination, religion, art, performance, and cultural production in general.
Please send a one-page abstract, a bio, and contact information to the editors by February 15, 2011. Completed papers, ranging 30-40 double spaced pages, using Chicago Style, and saved in WORD, are due by January 2, 2012. Send abstracts, bios, and queries to Toyin Falola, toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu, and/or Solimar Otero, solimar@lsu.edu.
For possible themes and topics, click here.
Dr. Solimar Otero
Assistant Professor and Folklorist
Department of English
260 Allen Hall
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
(225) 578 – 3046
solimar@lsu.edu