African American Religions, 1500-2000

Sylvester A. Johnson is Associate Professor of African American Studies and Religious Studies at Northwestern University, Illinois. He is a founding co-editor of the Journal of Africana Religions, the only English-language peer-reviewed journal devoted to publishing research on religions in African and throughout the Black diaspora.

• Introduction; 1. Black Atlantic religion and Afro-European commerce; 2. On religious matters; 3. Colonial governance and religious subjectivity; 4. Stateless bodies, African missions, and the Black Christian settler colony; 5. Black political theology, white redemption, and soldiers for empire; 6. Garveyism, anticolonialism, and state repression of Black religions; 7. Fundamentalism, counterintelligence, and the 'negro rebellion'; 8. Black religion, the security state, and the racialization of Islam; 9. Conclusion. Black religion, freedom, and colonialism.

'Not a conventional survey of African American religion, which might trace religious origins and developments, this book is a groundbreaking exploration of the conditions of possibility for thinking about African American religion. Transatlantic empires, colonial enclosures, and political engagements, as Sylvester Johnson shows, are more than historical contexts; they are forces of religious formation. The book is an important contribution to the study of African American religion and the study of religion.' David Chidester, author of Empire of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion