Beyond Man: Race, Coloniality, and Philosophy of Religion
edited by Yountae An and Eleanor Craig
Duke University Press, 2021 Cloth: 978-1-4780-1188-0 | Paper: 978-1-4780-1402-7 | eISBN: 978-1-4780-2133-9 Library of Congress Classification JV51.B49 2021
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK Beyond Man reimagines the meaning and potential of a philosophy of religion that better attends to the inextricable links among religion, racism, and colonialism. An Yountae, Eleanor Craig, and the contributors reckon with the colonial and racial implications of the field's history by staging a conversation with Black, Indigenous, and decolonial studies. In their introduction, An and Craig point out that European-descended Christianity has historically defined itself by its relation to the other while paradoxically claiming to represent and speak to humanity in its totality. The topics include secularism, the Eucharist's relation to Blackness, and sixteenth-century Brazilian cannibalism rituals as well as an analysis of how Mircea Eliade's conception of the sacred underwrites settler colonial projects and imaginaries. Throughout, the contributors also highlight the theorizing of Afro-Caribbean thinkers such as Sylvia Wynter, C. L. R. James, Frantz Fanon, and Aimé Césaire whose work disrupts the normative Western categories of religion and philosophy.
Contributors. An Yountae, Ellen Armour, J. Kameron Carter, Eleanor Craig, Amy Hollywood, Vincent Lloyd, Filipe Maia, Mayra Rivera, Devin Singh, Joseph R. Winters
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY An Yountae is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Northridge, and author of The Decolonial Abyss: Mysticism and Cosmopolitics from the Ruins.
Eleanor Craig is Program Director and Lecturer, Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights, Harvard University.
REVIEWS
“At this historical moment, along an expansive geography marked by various forms of disregard playing out long-standing modes of violence, this volume goes a long way in helping expose and decipher key structures of power. In the process and taken as a whole, it provides an intriguing depiction of what philosophy of religion has entailed with respect to these structures, and what it can mean and accomplish when cultural assumptions around categories such as the human are interrogated. I highly recommend it.”
-- Anthony B. Pinn, Rice University
“Beyond Man is an important, unique work. It transforms philosophy of religion by insisting that the field be constitutively informed by religious studies, critical race theories, and decolonial, postcolonial, and Black studies. If our discipline has any future at all, this is it.”
-- Mary-Jane Rubenstein, author of Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Challenging Modernity/Coloniality in Philosophy of Religion / Eleanor Craig and An Yountae 1 1. Decolonial Options for a Fragile Secular / Devin Singh 32 2. Embodied Counterpoetics: Syliva Wynter on Religion and Race / Mayra Rivera 57 3. We Have Never Been Human/e: The Laws of Burgos and the Philosophy of Coloniality in the Americas / Eleanor Craig 86 4. The Puritan Atheism of C.L.R. James / Vincent Lloyd 108 5. Decolonizing Spectatorship: Photography, Theology, and New Media / Ellen Armour 127 6. The Excremental Sacred: A Paraliturgy / J. Kameron Carter 151 7. On Violence and Redemption: Fanon and Colonial Theodicy / An Yountae 204 8. Alter-Carnation: Notes on Cannibalism and Coloniality in the Brazilian Context / Filipe Maia 226 9. The Sacred Gone Astray: Eliade, Fanon, Wynter, and the Terror of Colonial Settlement /Joseph R. Winters 245 10. Response—On Impassioned Claims: The Possibility of Doing Philosophy of Religion Otherwise / Amy Hollywood 269 Contributors 287 Index 291
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Beyond Man: Race, Coloniality, and Philosophy of Religion
edited by Yountae An and Eleanor Craig
Duke University Press, 2021 Cloth: 978-1-4780-1188-0 Paper: 978-1-4780-1402-7 eISBN: 978-1-4780-2133-9
Beyond Man reimagines the meaning and potential of a philosophy of religion that better attends to the inextricable links among religion, racism, and colonialism. An Yountae, Eleanor Craig, and the contributors reckon with the colonial and racial implications of the field's history by staging a conversation with Black, Indigenous, and decolonial studies. In their introduction, An and Craig point out that European-descended Christianity has historically defined itself by its relation to the other while paradoxically claiming to represent and speak to humanity in its totality. The topics include secularism, the Eucharist's relation to Blackness, and sixteenth-century Brazilian cannibalism rituals as well as an analysis of how Mircea Eliade's conception of the sacred underwrites settler colonial projects and imaginaries. Throughout, the contributors also highlight the theorizing of Afro-Caribbean thinkers such as Sylvia Wynter, C. L. R. James, Frantz Fanon, and Aimé Césaire whose work disrupts the normative Western categories of religion and philosophy.
Contributors. An Yountae, Ellen Armour, J. Kameron Carter, Eleanor Craig, Amy Hollywood, Vincent Lloyd, Filipe Maia, Mayra Rivera, Devin Singh, Joseph R. Winters
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY An Yountae is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Northridge, and author of The Decolonial Abyss: Mysticism and Cosmopolitics from the Ruins.
Eleanor Craig is Program Director and Lecturer, Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights, Harvard University.
REVIEWS
“At this historical moment, along an expansive geography marked by various forms of disregard playing out long-standing modes of violence, this volume goes a long way in helping expose and decipher key structures of power. In the process and taken as a whole, it provides an intriguing depiction of what philosophy of religion has entailed with respect to these structures, and what it can mean and accomplish when cultural assumptions around categories such as the human are interrogated. I highly recommend it.”
-- Anthony B. Pinn, Rice University
“Beyond Man is an important, unique work. It transforms philosophy of religion by insisting that the field be constitutively informed by religious studies, critical race theories, and decolonial, postcolonial, and Black studies. If our discipline has any future at all, this is it.”
-- Mary-Jane Rubenstein, author of Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Challenging Modernity/Coloniality in Philosophy of Religion / Eleanor Craig and An Yountae 1 1. Decolonial Options for a Fragile Secular / Devin Singh 32 2. Embodied Counterpoetics: Syliva Wynter on Religion and Race / Mayra Rivera 57 3. We Have Never Been Human/e: The Laws of Burgos and the Philosophy of Coloniality in the Americas / Eleanor Craig 86 4. The Puritan Atheism of C.L.R. James / Vincent Lloyd 108 5. Decolonizing Spectatorship: Photography, Theology, and New Media / Ellen Armour 127 6. The Excremental Sacred: A Paraliturgy / J. Kameron Carter 151 7. On Violence and Redemption: Fanon and Colonial Theodicy / An Yountae 204 8. Alter-Carnation: Notes on Cannibalism and Coloniality in the Brazilian Context / Filipe Maia 226 9. The Sacred Gone Astray: Eliade, Fanon, Wynter, and the Terror of Colonial Settlement /Joseph R. Winters 245 10. Response—On Impassioned Claims: The Possibility of Doing Philosophy of Religion Otherwise / Amy Hollywood 269 Contributors 287 Index 291
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE