Creating Ourselves: African Americans and Hispanic Americans on Popular Culture and Religious Expression - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822345668 ISBN 13: 9780822345664

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Creating Ourselves is a unique effort to lay the cultural and theological groundwork for cross-cultural collaboration between the African and Latino/a American communities. In the introduction, the editors contend that given overlapping histories and interests of the two communities, they should work together to challenge social injustices. Acknowledging that dialogue is a necessary precursor to collaboration, they maintain that African and Latino/a Americans need to cultivate the habit of engaging "the other" in substantive conversation. Toward that end, they have brought together theologians and scholars of religion from both communities. The contributors offer broadly comparative exchanges about the religious and theological significance of various forms of African American and Latino/a popular culture, including representations of the body, literature, music, television, visual arts, and cooking. Corresponding to a particular form of popular culture, each section features two essays, one by an African American scholar and one by a Latino/a scholar, as well as a short response by each scholar to the other's essay. The essays and responses are lively, varied, and often personal. One contributor puts forth a "brown" theology of hip hop that celebrates hybridity, contradiction, and cultural miscegenation. Another analyzes the content of the message transmitted by African American evangelical preachers who have become popular sensations through television broadcasts, video distribution, and Internet promotions. The other essays include a theological reading of the Latina body, a consideration of the "authenticity" of representations of Jesus as white, a theological account of the popularity of telenovelas, and a reading of African American ideas of paradise in one of Toni Morrison's novels. Creating Ourselves helps to make popular culture available as a resource for theology and religious studies and for facilitating meaningful discussions across racial and ethnic boundaries.Contributors. Teresa Delgado, James H. Evans Jr., Joseph De Leon, Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Angel F. Mendez Montoya, Alexander Nava, Anthony B. Pinn, Mayra Rivera, Suzanne E. Hoeferkamp Segovia, Benjamin Valentin, Jonathan L. Walton, Traci C. West, Nancy Lynne Westfield, Sheila F. Winborne

About this title

Review

"Creating Ourselves should be welcomed by all those concerned with inequalities in our society. It approaches popular culture from the perspective of social justice while employing theological and ethical perspectives; it provides an array of approaches to popular culture influenced by the different social locations of the contributors; and those contributors, from two communities of color, speak to, rather than past, each other."--Miguel A. De La Torre, author of Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins

"In its comparative and dialogical approach, Creating Ourselves provides a model for the kind of scholarly work in which we might engage across the humanities. It also makes an important contribution to the popular culture studies, a field that is rarely in conversation with scholars of religion and theology."--Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday

"[T]his is an excellent text and a vital resource for the classroom and research. It appeals not only to scholars of religion and popular culture and individuals interested in African-Americans and Latino/a communities, but also to anyone who would like to see a model of collaborative academic dialogue."--Michelle A. Gonzalez "Theological Studies "

"I found the structure of the work innovative and very much needed in scholarly circles. . . . Overall, I enjoyed reading Creating Ourselves as the subject of creativity in all different forms, styles, colours, and shadows is part of our daily life."--Anna Hamling "Feminist Review Blog "

"Pinn and Valentin's aim is to create a space for dialogue while, at the same time, opening up an avenue for critique and bridge building. The format is a good one.... [T]his volume will... lead to further discussion between the two traditions and should lead to more academic presentations, essays, panel discussions, and books."--Andre E. Johnson "Journal of African American History "

"The editors have assembled a very creative set of essays by African American and Hispanic theologians reflecting on popular culture and religious expression within their communities. The great strength of this collection is found in the dialogical set-up wherein an African theologian presents an essay, which a Hispanic theologian comments upon, and vice-versa throughout the volume."--L. H. Mamiya "Choice "

About the Author

Anthony B. Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. His many books include Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music, The Black Church in the Post-Civil Rights Era, and Varieties of African American Religious Experience. Benjamin Valentin is Professor of Theology and Culture and Director of the Orlando E. Costas Lectureship in Latino(a) Theology at the Andover Newton Theological School. He is the author of Mapping Public Theology: Beyond Culture, Identity, and Difference and the editor of New Horizons in Hispanic/Latino(a) Theology. Pinn and Valentin are the editors of The Ties That Bind: African American and Hispanic American/Latino(a) Theologies in Dialogue.

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0822345668
• ISBN 13: 9780822345664
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Pinn Anthony B., Valentin Benjamin