Book Review: Feminized Rastafar-I, Adaptive Diaspora, and Embodied Resistance in Marcia Douglas’ The Marvelous Equations of the Dread

by Stephanie Couey

Marcia Douglas’ 2016 novel, The Marvelous Equations of the Dread centers around a young Jamaican woman named Leenah. Leenah’s multimodal and fully-embodied engagements with sound grant her privileged access into the temporal and spiritual experience of Rastafar-I. Following pan-African traditions of resistance centered around adaptation, Leenah radically adapts to her surroundings as a deaf woman in a persistently-masculinist and sound-driven movement.Continue Reading