Oshun, Lemonade, and Intertextuality: Afro-Atlantic Religion in Black Cultural Production
Sheneese Thompson
University Press of Florida
In Oshun, Lemonade, and Intertextuality, Sheneese Thompson analyzes works of film and literature to explore how Afro-Atlantic religion intersects with themes of resilience in Black femininity and womanhood.
Focusing on Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade, Thompson examines iconography of the Yoruba goddess Oshun, represented by rivers, the color yellow, and other symbols. Thompson argues that Beyoncé’s tribute to Oshun creates a narrative of self-repossession amid external definitions, generational trauma, and emotional violence and draws connections to other works that feature similar religious references.
In looking at Lemonade together with influential older texts created by Black women, Thompson establishes the use of Afro-Atlantic religion—to think through Black womanhood, to explore self-defined sexuality—as a central tenet of Black women’s literature, one that these artists and writers have brought to the global stage.