I got the word in me and I can sing it, you know : a study of the performed African-American sermon /

Davis's study of the black American sermon should be considered alongside two earlier influential works on the subject: Bruce A. Rosenberg's The Art of the American Folk Preacher (1970) and Henry Mitchell's Black Preaching (CH, Mar '71). The present study differs from the two previous works in that it attempts a much more rigorous structural and textual analysis of the sermon itself, with the end of determining what constitutes a good African-American sermon. According to Davis, there should be a ``balance between secular and sacred elements in the overall structure and within each of the sermon's units.'' Although he listened to a number of sermons from various regions of the country, the study focuses primarily on only two examples, one that meets his test of a successful sermon and one that falls short of the mark. This limited focus allows for a more in-depth study of the sermon, but it also raises questions regarding the reliability of Davis's findings. There are moments of genuine discernment in the work, but the charts and graphs, coupled with the jargon of anthropological and linguistic analysis, make for a discussion that is more tedious than illuminating. Recommended for collections serving upper-division undergraduate and graduate students.-J.O. Hodges, University of Tennessee at Knoxville