Date of Award

6-1-2010

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

First Advisor

Selah Saterstrom, MFA

Second Advisor

William Zaranka

Third Advisor

Arthur Jones

Keywords

Hoodoo culture, Literary interpretation, Blues creation, Corregidora

Abstract

The main question posed in my thesis is whether or not the crossroads is a paradigm that might open the event of reading and interpretation. I believe this profound place of possibility is a valid intellectual model for innovative and uninhabited modes of understanding. The hermeneutics of the crossroads is an imaginative approach that keeps us open to the transformative power of literature transpiring when we bring to the text our working scholarly knowledge, but also allow ourselves to receive what it has to offer us.

Using the crossroads theory of surrendering and receiving, I have interpreted Gayl Jones's novel, Corregidora, in this spirit. In Chapter 1, I briefly examine historical aspects in Blues creation and evolution, and how this relates to Jones's novel. Chapter 2, I perform my hermeneutical interpretive posture. And finally, in Chapter 3, I place myself in the center of possibility within Hoodoo culture, in order to personally discover how this revered, yet often overlooked, culture speaks to and through Blues, literature, and the crossroads.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Jacqueline S. Farritor

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

102 p.

Discipline

Literature

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