Life Under the Baobab Tree

Catherine Keller (Afterword By) Catherine Keller is a professor of constructive theology at the Theological School of Drew University. In her teaching, lecturing, and writing, she develops the relational potential of a theology of becoming. Her books reconfigure ancient symbols of divinity for the sake of a planetary conviviality—a life together across vast webs of difference. Thriving in the interplay of ecological and gender politics, of process cosmology, poststructuralist philosophy and religious pluralism, her work is both deconstructive and constructive in strategy. She is author of several books, including Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy and Other Last Chances (2021); Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglements (2014); Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (2003), and many other essays and articles.Kenneth N. Ngwa (Edited By) Kenneth Ngwa is a professor of Hebrew Bible at Drew Theological School. Ngwa's current research interests are in the fields of African/a biblical hermeneutics. He is also the founder and director of the Religion and Global Health Forum at Drew Theological School, an interdisciplinary forum that examines the relation between religion and health, healthy disparities, and collaborative work for health equity. Ngwa is the author of The Hermeneutics of the 'Happy' Ending in Job 42:7–17 (2005); co-editor of Navigating African Biblical Hermeneutics: Trends and Themes from Our Pots and Calabashes (2018); and Let My People Live: An Africana Reading of Exodus (2022).Aliou Cissé Niang (Edited By) Aliou Cissé Niang is an associate professor of biblical interpretation—New Testament—at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Niang is the author of Faith and Freedom in Galatia and Senegal (2009); co-author of Text, Image, and Christians in the Graeco-Roman World (2012); A Poetics of Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: God, Human-Nature Relationship, and Negritude (Cascade Books, 2019); "Catholic Epistles," in Anselm Companion to the New Testament (Anselm Academic, 2014); "Space and Human Agency in the Making of the Story of Gershom through a Senegalese Christian Lens," Forum-Journal of Biblical Literature (2015); "Islandedness, Translation, and Creolization," in Islands, Islanders, and Bible: RumInations (2015); "Christianity in Senegal," and "Diola Religion," both in Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, ed. Mark A. Lamport and Philip Jenkins (2018).Arthur Pressley (Edited By) Arthur Pressley is an associate professor of psychology and religion at Drew University, where he has also served as academic dean. Pressley is also a clinical psychologist, a past president of the New Jersey Association of Black Psychologists and has worked on numerous international issues, most notably the Childhood Chernobyl Childhood Illness Project. He currently teaches a course titled "Fanon and Psychoanalysis of Black Novels." Some of his published articles include "Using Novels of Resistance to Teach Intercultural Analysis and Empathy"; "Teaching Black: God Talk and Black Thinkers," in Being Black, Teaching Black: Politics and Pedagogy in Religious Studies, ed. Nancy Lynne Westfield (2007), and "The Story of Nimrod: A Struggle with Otherness and the Search for Identity," in African American Religious Life and the Story of Nimrod, ed. Anthony Pinn and Allen Dwight Callahan (2008).

• Introduction: Life Under the Baobab Tree:Africana Studies and Religion in a Transitional AgeKenneth N. Ngwa, Aliou Cissé Niang, and Arthur Pressley 1PART 1: UN/FOLDING IDENTITIESArchangel Gabriel Speaks to MaryPamela Mordecai 231. Nella Larsen's Quicksand: Mourning through Biracial IdentitiesArthur Pressley 292. Body as Praxis: Disarticulating the Human from Ownership and PropertyAn Yountae 573. What It's Like to Be a Blackened Body, and Why It's Like That: A Preliminary ExplorationDesmond Coleman 754. The Rhizome and/as the Tree of Life: The Relational Poetics of Wisdom and Decolonizing Biblical StudiesA. Paige Rawson 925. Senghorian Négritude and Postcolonial Biblical CriticismAliou Cissé Niang 126PART 2: AFRICANA ACTIVISMLitany on the LinePamela Mordecai 1716. God Killed! God Interrupted, Long Live the People!: Political Theory in Religious ActNimi Wariboko 1737. "Doing the Will of God" as Loving God Whose Way Is PeaceAliou Cissé Niang 1958. Mysticism and Mothering in Black Women's Social Justice Activism: Brazil/USARachel Elizabeth Harding 2239. A Theopoetics of Exodus and the Africana Spirit in MusicSharon Kimberly Williams 23510. Must We Burn Isaac?: A Four-Part Hermeneutical Fantasy for Africana EpistemologyMinenhle Nomalungelo Khumalo 250PART 3: AFRICANA HISTORIOGRAPHIES AND MEMORIESTemitope TemitopePamela Mordecai 27311. From White Man's Magic to Black Folks' WisdomAlthea Spencer Miller 27512. Solidarity by Sharing Power: An Inculturated Organic Storytelling of Jonah and Mami Wata'Shola D. Adegbite 30713. Envisioning Africana Religions:Seeking a Distinctive Voice for the Study of Religions in Africa and the African DiasporaSalim Faraji 32814. Interpreting from the Back/Black-Side: Exodus through the Shawl of MemoryKenneth N. Ngwa 35515. Conjuring Lost Books:(Re-)membering Fragmented Litanies at the Intersection of Africana and Biblical Studies(The Rev. Canon) Hugh R. Page Jr. 400AfterwordCatherine Keller 409List of Contributors 413Index of Modern Authors 419Index of Ancient Documents 427

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