Daughter Zion’s Contemporary Sibling Dalit Assertions vis-à-vis a Postcolonial Reading of the Book of Lamentations

doi:10.24071/jaot.010104

Abstract

Taking a cue from a perceptive and a widely-received work of Carleen Mandalfo (Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations), the present paper aims to glean some of the salient multi-disciplinary insights of the author. The same insights are grouped around some of the salient postcolonial features that R. S. Sugirtharajah outlines, which together constitute postcolonial construal with attendant illustrations. Then, the paper shifts the spotlight on commensurate features in contemporary Dalit assertions from the Indian subcontinent in order to propose that the latter can be viewed as a meaningful, contemporary sibling of Daughter Zion. Despite the chronological and cultural distances between the Dalits and Daughter Zion of Lamentations, it is proposed here that the assertions of these two likewise siblings may profitably be appropriated by today’s readers of courage and commitment in order to come to terms with the angsts and outbursts of people, particularly of those who reel under immense pain and fissure.

Highlights

In the great vicinity of death, of blood, and of soil, the mind takes on harder features and darker colors.[1]We live in a world that is continually confronted by the presence of massive suffering.[2]
Taking a cue from a perceptive and a widely-received work of Carleen Mandalfo (Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations), the present paper aims to glean some of the salient multi-disciplinary insights of the author
The paper shifts the spotlight on commensurate features in contemporary Dalit assertions from the Indian subcontinent in order to propose that the latter can be viewed as a meaningful, contemporary sibling of Daughter Zion

Summary

Introduction

In the great vicinity of death, of blood, and of soil, the mind takes on harder features and darker colors.[1]. 12 Hens-Piazza, Lamentations, xxxix.MN”,”number-of-pages”:”154”,”source”:”Google Books”,”event-place”:”Collegeville, MN”,”abstract”:”Though the five poems of Lamentations undoubtedly refer to the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, the multiple voices that narrate unspeakable suffering and labor to make sense of the surrounding horror do so at women’s expense. See Hens-Piazza, Lamentations, xlii–xliii.MN”,”number-of-pages”:”154”,”source”:”Google Books”,”event-place”:”Collegeville, MN”,”abstract”:”Though the five poems of Lamentations undoubtedly refer to the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, the multiple voices that narrate unspeakable suffering and labor to make sense of the surrounding horror do so at women’s expense. See Hens-Piazza, xl.MN”,”number-of-pages”:”154”,”source”:”Google Books”,”event-place”:”Collegeville, MN”,”abstract”:”Though the five poems of Lamentations undoubtedly refer to the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, the multiple voices that narrate unspeakable suffering and labor to make sense of the surrounding horror do so at women’s expense. By highlighting comparable construal in Dalit strategies – both discursive and otherwise – one of the key tasks of this paper will be presented: in Dalits, we can meaningfully find a contemporary sibling to Daughter, both in pain and protest

A Postcolonial Reading of the Book of Lamentations

Conclusion