"Dark Heathenism" of the American Novelist Ishmael Reed
African Voodoo as American Literary Hoodoo

Seeks to bring American literature to the fore by analyzing the work of the 20th century African American novelist, poet, and essayist Ishmael Reed. This book demonstrates how Reed abrogated and appropriated the English language and colonial/imperial cultural systems by returning to the "dark heathenism" of Neo-Hoodooism.

This book seeks to bring American literature to the fore by analyzing the work of the 20th century African American novelist, poet, and essayist Ishmael Reed. The placement of Reed's work within the context of post-colonial literatures and studies finds its justification in that his entire work explores key issues that are of concern in post-colonial studies: Slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, hegemony, language, displacement, multiculturalism, etc. Ultimately, this book demonstrates how Reed abrogated and appropriated the English language and colonial/imperial cultural systems by returning to the "dark heathenism" of Neo-Hoodooism, an aesthetic allowing him to source multiple world cultures.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Neo-HooDooism: Post-Colonial Textual Resistance, African Diaspora Re-Connection, and Multicultural Poetics
2 The Free-Lance Pallbearers: Colonial Mimicry and "Adulteration of her Tongue"
3 Yellow Black Radio Broke-Down: "Scattering Arbitrarily" and Blowing like Charlie "Bird" Parker - HooDoo Be-Bop Western
4 Mumbo Jumbo: "Profaning [Western] Sacred Words" and "Beating Them on the Anvil of Boogie Woogie"
5 The Last Days of Louisiana Red: "The Wretched of the Earth"
6 Flight to Canada: HooDoo Writing as a "Piece de Resistance"
7 The Terrible Twos and The Terrible Threes: Ecological Imperialism, Christmas Blues, Reggae, and Calypso
8 Reckless Eyeballing: Writing Post-Coloniality and African American Women's Feminist Fictions
9 Japanese by Spring: Re/Writing American Orientalism and the Metonymic Function of Japanese and Yoruba
Notes
Bibliography
Index.