25 min

Emily Zobel Marshall – Longing for Freedom: The Story of the African Trickster Settee Seminars

    • Education

Dr Emily Zobel Marshall will take you on journey through black history and across continents, guided by a most captivating character, the trickster spider Anansi. Marshall will reveal the roots of the Anansi folktales in Ghana and demonstrate Anansi inspired both psychological and physical resistance to enslavement on the Jamaican plantations. She will show us the vital role the trickster plays in our lives by testing and exposing abuses of power.



Further reading:

For Anansi story collections in Jamaica see, among others: Beckwith, Martha Warren (1924) Jamaica Anansi Stories. New York: American Folk-lore Society. Bennett, Louise (1979) Anancy and Miss Lou. Kingston: Sangster' s Book Stores. Jekyll, W. (1966) Jamaican Song and Story: Annancy Stories, Digging Sings, Dancing Tunes and Ring Tunes. New York: Dover Publications, and Tanna, Laura (1984) Jamaican Folktales and Oral Histories. Kingston: Institute of Jamaica Publications.

Zobel Marshall, Emily (2019) American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit. Rowman and Littlefield: London.

Zobel Marshall, Emily (2012) Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance. University of the West Indies Press: Kingston. 

Zobel, Joseph (1950; 2020) Black Shack Alley. Penguin Classics: USA



About the speaker:

Dr Emily Zobel Marshall is a Reader in Postcolonial Literature at the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Beckett University. Her research specialisms are Caribbean literature and folklore and Caribbean carnival cultures. She is obsessed with trickster figures and her books focus on the role of the trickster in Caribbean and African American cultures; her first book, Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance (2012) was published by the University of the West Indies Press and her second book, American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2019.

Emily enjoys developing her creative work alongside her academic writing. She has had poems published in The Caribbean Writer (Vol 32, 2020), The Caribbean Quarterly (Vol 66, 2020) Magma (‘The Loss’, Issue 75, 2019), Smoke Magazine (Issue 67, 2020). 

Dr Emily Zobel Marshall will take you on journey through black history and across continents, guided by a most captivating character, the trickster spider Anansi. Marshall will reveal the roots of the Anansi folktales in Ghana and demonstrate Anansi inspired both psychological and physical resistance to enslavement on the Jamaican plantations. She will show us the vital role the trickster plays in our lives by testing and exposing abuses of power.



Further reading:

For Anansi story collections in Jamaica see, among others: Beckwith, Martha Warren (1924) Jamaica Anansi Stories. New York: American Folk-lore Society. Bennett, Louise (1979) Anancy and Miss Lou. Kingston: Sangster' s Book Stores. Jekyll, W. (1966) Jamaican Song and Story: Annancy Stories, Digging Sings, Dancing Tunes and Ring Tunes. New York: Dover Publications, and Tanna, Laura (1984) Jamaican Folktales and Oral Histories. Kingston: Institute of Jamaica Publications.

Zobel Marshall, Emily (2019) American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit. Rowman and Littlefield: London.

Zobel Marshall, Emily (2012) Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance. University of the West Indies Press: Kingston. 

Zobel, Joseph (1950; 2020) Black Shack Alley. Penguin Classics: USA



About the speaker:

Dr Emily Zobel Marshall is a Reader in Postcolonial Literature at the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Beckett University. Her research specialisms are Caribbean literature and folklore and Caribbean carnival cultures. She is obsessed with trickster figures and her books focus on the role of the trickster in Caribbean and African American cultures; her first book, Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance (2012) was published by the University of the West Indies Press and her second book, American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2019.

Emily enjoys developing her creative work alongside her academic writing. She has had poems published in The Caribbean Writer (Vol 32, 2020), The Caribbean Quarterly (Vol 66, 2020) Magma (‘The Loss’, Issue 75, 2019), Smoke Magazine (Issue 67, 2020). 

25 min

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