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Southern Appalachian Woman Preachers and Their Sermons



Author(s)

Rebecca Dean

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2017.12.015

Northampton Community College, Bethlehem, USA

This article inquires into how the maintenance of the residual practice of inspired preaching broadcast over the radio by Southern Appalachian Pentecostals, offers an accepted means by which women gain the power to articulate the conflicts, desires and contradictions of their culture. The democratic ethos of Pentecostalism declares that all people who feel the call to preach must be given that opportunity which opens a space of women’s voices within the traditionally male “preacher culture.” Because radio lacks the visual component, and inspired preaching is deemed valid by its effect of the body, women may preach over the radio without the potential for sexual display that could arouse men visually. By examining the content and delivery of women’s sermons using studies in melodrama, the article explores the nature and articulation of dramatic conflicts, points of difference, and especially issues of the body as lived by the women of southern Appalachia. Thereby, the article locates sites of resistance and conflicts with power both within and without the region. Using Gramcian notions of hegemony, negotiation and consent, it explores how a particular culture successfully elaborates itself through language and how Appalachian women critique their culture without risk of dramatic change.

Southern Appalachia, cultural maintenance, cultural specificity, Gramsci, melodrama, women, radio