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Charles H. Long,
Significations:
Signs, Symbols, and Images
in
the Interpretation of Religion
Philosophical and Cultural Studies in
Religion
Significations
is a sustained criticism of several major approaches
(phenomenological, historical, theological) and pre-suppositions
(“shadows of the discipline”) that make up some of the work of
religious studies in the United States. Within this critical spirit,
Long attempts (1) a reevaluation of some of the basic issues forming
the study of religion in America, (2) an outline of a hermeneutics
of conquest and colonialism generated during the formation of the
social and symbolic order called the “New World,” and (3) a critique
of the categories of civil religion, innocence, and theology from
the perspective of the black experience and the experience of
colonized peoples.
Contents
Foreword
Proem
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Religion and the Study of
Religion
Chapter 1 The Study of Religion: Its
Nature and Its Discourse
Chapter 2 Prolegomenon to a Religious
Hermeneutic
Chapter 3 Archaism and Hermeneutics
Chapter 4 Silence and Signification
Part II: Religion and Cultural
Contact
Chapter 5 Human Centers: An Essay on
Method in the History of Religions
Chapter 6 Primitive/Civilized: The
Locus of a Problem
Chapter 7 Conquest and Cultural
Contact in the New World
Chapter 8 Cargo Cults as Cultural
Historical Phenomena
Part III: Shadow and Symbols of
American Religion
Chapter 9 Interpretations of Black
Religion in America
A: The Black Reality: Toward a
Theology of Freedom
B: The Ambiguities of Innocence
C: Civil Rights — Civil
Religion: Visible People and Invisible Religion
Chapter 10 The Oppressive Elements in
Religion and the Religions of the Oppressed
Chapter 11 Perspectives for a Study
of Afro‑American Religion in the United States
Chapter 12 Freedom, Otherness, and
Religion: Theologies Opaque
Index
Reviews
“Significations, a landmark in
the History of Religions, will remain a durable classic in the
discipline for a long time to come. The beauty of the book, in part,
lies in Charles Long's ability to draw immensely from African
American and Indigenous traditions and his personal experiences, to
provide theoretical insights into issues of meanings and
significance of religion in our contemporary world. This book is
certainly one of the most original and provocative texts in
Religious Studies available to us today.”
— Jacob Olupona, Professor, African
American and African Studies and
Chair, Religious Studies Program,
University of California, Davis
“In exploring the meaning of
religious meanings, Charles Long has put us in touch with the
religious significance of our world by mapping its vast and
unfathomable oceans, by charting the relations of human contact and
exchange, conquest and colonization, materiality and opacity,
representation and interpretation, identity and difference, and many
other features of modernity that have all been mediated by vast
bodies of water...has directed our attention to global oceanic
relations that have produced profound local effects, especially in
the formation of America. Significations is a book for
thinking with, thinking through, and thinking about thinking in the
study of religion.”
— David Chidester, Professor of
Comparative Religion, University of Capetown
Author
Charles H.
Long speaks to the general meaning of religion in history and
culture, and specifically about African religion in the Atlantic
world, from a unique perspective. He participated in establishing
the first curriculum for the study of religion in the College of the
University of Chicago. He was a member of, and served subsequently
as Chair of, the History of Religions Field and the Committee on
African Studies, respectively, at the University of Chicago. Through
his teaching at, among others, the University of Chicago, the
University of North Carolina, Duke University and Syracuse
University, and a rich and distinguished list of publications, he
has influenced three generations of Historians of Religion and
African-American Studies.
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