Fire in My Bones: Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in African American Gospel (Contemporary Ethnography) [Paperback]

Glenn Hinson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Contemporary Ethnography | Publication Date: December 15, 1999

Glenn Hinson focuses on a single gospel program and offers a major contribution to our understanding not just of gospel but of the nature of religious experience.

A key feature of African American performance is the layering of performative voices and the constant shifting of performative focus. To capture this layering, Hinson demonstrates how all the parts of the gospel program work together to shape a single whole, joining speech and song, performer and audience, testimony, prayer, preaching, and singing into a seamless and multifaceted service of worship. Personal stories ground the discussion at every turn, while experiential testimony fuels the unfolding arguments. Fire in My Bones is an original exploration of experience and belief in a community of African American Christians, but it is also an exploration of African American aesthetics, the study of belief, and the ethnographic enterprise.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Ethnography at its best. Highly recommended."—Choice

"A superb ethnographic study of African American 'sanctified' faith. . . . Ethnography at its best. Highly recommended."—Choice

"A must-read for anyone interested in religious discourse, Black gospel programs, or description and explanation of religious experience within any domain."—Language in Society

About the Author

Glenn Hinson teaches anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Product Details

• Paperback: 424 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press (December 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812217179
• ISBN-13: 978-0812217179
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,373,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Building the Fire, October 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Fire in My Bones: Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in African American Gospel (Contemporary Ethnography) (Hardcover)

This book is an excellent study of religious expression and gospel music in African-American congregations. Hinson takes his readers through an anniversary service for a gospel group while providing thorough and insightful descriptions of salient aspects of the context for the religious expression that he presents in this sensitive and articulate study. Although Hinson allows for a range of interpretations about what the participants are experiencing in religious devotion, he makes a strong argument that is too easily dismissed in academic research. Namely, rather than explaining away encounters with the supernatural as physical or psychological phenomena, the researcher will gain a different understanding of culture if he or she takes the claims of a believer as a valid starting point for ethnographic inquiry. Hinson suggests that experiencing divine presence provides a new way for readers to truly "understand" what he writes of in this book. I have attended countless gospel services, and Hinson's book provides an excellent resource for gaining a greater awareness of what I have seen as believers "have church." Hinson's methods, theories, and insights as a folklorist provides an incredibly rich and accurate way to complete ethnographic study. This book is also beautifully illustrated with the superb photography of Roland Freeman.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine, in-depth examination of Afro-American devotions., March 3, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fire in My Bones: Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in African American Gospel (Contemporary Ethnography) (Paperback)

This examination of Afro-American gospel examines the gospel music program as a whole, considering how it works to join performer and audience, prayer and singing into part of the worship service and how Afro-American Christians have made gospel an integral part of their world. A fine in-depth examination of devotions and devotional services.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Respectful of the christian experience..., February 11, 2005

By 

J. C. Blom (Bergen, Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fire in My Bones: Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in African American Gospel (Contemporary Ethnography) (Paperback)

Although this study is situated within some african american communities in the Carolinas, it - rather than reading gospel as a "folk expression" - takes into account gospels deep involvement in the devotional life and christian experience of its "audiences" and "artists" (each concept here inapropriate within a more christian frame of referance). To acheive this the author Glenn Hinson (who's a folklorist/anthropologist) approaches christian onthology and epistemology in a more respectful way than what has been common in the social sciences. At least in order to understand the believers point of view (concerning gospel) one has to pay closer attention to their stories. Much space is therefore left to (nonreduced) extended citations from various interviews, live testemonies, prayers, sermons, songs, private conversaution and other sources. Hinson also deliberately shares with the readers from his own process of trying to understand, his own failures and ethical problems in the dual role as seeker/researcher. A very sympathetic book indeed, and a human achievement I hold in high regard.