- Published: January 10, 2022
- Updated: January 10, 2022
- University / College: Amherst College
- Level: College Admission
- Language: English
- Downloads: 40
The paper ” Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora by Joseph Murphy” is an outstanding example of a book review on culture.
J. Murphy, the of ‘ Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora’, is an expert on the domains of spirituality and incarnation. He explores five major religious practices which have their common root in Africa in the contemporary time and explains each of them in an individual platform with their respective terms like Cubas Santeria, Brazils Candomble, Haitian Vodou (voodoo), Jamaican Revival Zion, and the Black Church in the United States.
In the segment bearing the title ‘ Introduction’, Murphy tries to explore the way; the religious practices having their roots in Africa have emancipated the western half of the globe and the places where these slaves from African roots have migrated. Murphy meticulously explains the roots of diaspora worship and traces the path through which it has culminated into the attainment of a universal paradigm of spirituality.
Chapter 3 of the book bears the title ‘ Candomble in Brazil’ and this chapter is a very essential part of the book as explicit ideation of the worshipping process, methodology and rituals have been carefully delegated in this book owing to his extreme expertise in this genre of worship. The most recent and controversial Anglophone pertaining to the reconstruction of the words with plurals have been used with ease, completely discerning the barricades of everything cliché and controversial with it. The generalized alien view regarding the concepts of Vodou or Condomble is very commonplace. Murphy explains that Condomble is a wide umbrella concept and narrowing it to the regional, linear and sometimes to the personal differences culminate into the rejection of the umbrella concept entirely, thus misinterpreting the phenomena.
The book by J. Murphy is reliable and helpful in understanding and appreciating the religious practices based on the plethora of spirituality and practiced in contemporary society with their common roots and relations in Africa.
