Toward Afrodiasporic and Afrofuturist Philosophies of Religion is an excellent representation of the high-impact practice of undergraduate scholarship and inquiry in the humanities in general, and religious studies and the philosophy of religion in particular. Edited by Jon Ivan Gill, the work is an anthology of student papers that arose from Gill’s visiting professorship at Pomona College in Africana Studies in Religion/Africana Philosophy of Religion. Encouraged by the religious studies department at Pomona, he offered the course that bears the name of the volume. Thirteen students from across the Claremont Colleges enrolled in the course, which invited students to reflect on the meaning of religion. In their reflections, they attempt to critically engage the Western intellectual tradition by bringing it into dialogue with the intellectual/cultural work of African diasporic peoples, particularly the aesthetic expression found in art, music, and literature. This approach is displayed in Gill’s first book, Underground Rap as Religion: A Theopoetic Examination of a Process Aesthetic Religion (Routledge, 2019), which integrates underground rap, process theology, and process philosophy.
Most of the essays in the edited volume draw from texts that were foundational to the course curriculum such as Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi Fantasy and Culture (Lawrence Hill Books, 2013) by Ytasha Womack and Religion and Hip-Hop (Routledge, 2012) by Monica Miller. As an anthology, the essays explore various dimensions of Afrodiasporic and Afrofuturistic philosophy of religion. For example, Dray Densen’s “Transing Southern Cartographies: An Incommensurable Win” draws upon the early work of James H. Cone's Black theology, which characterizes God as the God of the oppressed. The oppressed in this context are Black trans people. The objective of the piece is to reject understandings of Blackness and Black liberation that do not embrace Black trans and queer bodies.
Other essays, such as those of Rachel Murdock, Nathan Hahn, and Justin Lennox, look to themes expressed in forms of cultural production like rap and hip-hop, referencing several prominent artists, including Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, Solange, Outcast, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Young Thug, and Travis Scott. Madison Barre-Hemmingway examines the association of Afrofuturism with science fiction and asserts that Afrofuturism's affinity with Afrodiasporic religion is due to its commitment to Black futurity and the flourishing of Black people.
Elijah Jabbar-Bey’s essay challenges systems and categories by which religious experiences and practices are characterized. Distinctions such as explicit and implicit religion privilege or center certain experiences while relegating others to the margin or periphery of society.
Kalanzi Kajubi and Ben Miller's essays both embrace the significance of critical historical consciousness as a necessary component of envisioning alternative futures. Kajubi turns to the work of Nigerian musician, political activist, and pioneer of Afrobeat Fela Kuti. In his cultural production and activism, Kuti worked to decolonize African forms of life. While at times professing a desire to return to a precolonial African world, Kuti serves as a prophet of “a new kind of African spirituality” (88) that draws from indigenous African traditions and practices and elements of Africa’s postcolonial society to create a better life for African and Afrodiasporic people. Afrobeat is the gospel music of this spiritual movement. Similarly, Miller emphasizes the role of the critical historian, who rejects teleological frameworks of history as well as those who endeavor to return to a golden age. Although this critical orientation is often associated with a thinker like Friedrich Nietzsche, it is a posture common among advocates of decolonization and has resonance with themes of Afrofuturism in its valuing of the power of creativity and imagination.
The closing essays of Desiree Rawls, Daniel Savin, and Olu Omoyugbo, although quite different, recognize what the late historian of religion Charles Long asserted: that religion is about orientation in an ultimate sense. Such orientation is associated with how one understands who they are and their place in the universe. This orientation involves creativity and critique in response to the established orders of existence.
It is important to remember that the anthology consists of undergraduate essays from a semester-long course. As such, one will not find the level of conceptual and theoretical depth and complexity found in the research of more mature scholars. Additionally, the quality of the essays varies, and a few seem awkward fits for the volume.
As someone who has a keen interest in Africana speculative fiction and African diasporic religion, I was disappointed in the lack of engagement with specific Afrodiasporic spiritual and religious traditions. As alternatives to Western intellectual, cultural, and social systems, indigenous African ways of knowing and meaning-making possess untapped potential for philosophical reflection and inspiration.
In addition, most of the essays engage only the work of African American cultural workers. While this is understandable for such a course, it remains problematic if one wishes to be inclusive. Moreover, I maintain that a more nuanced assessment of the artists referenced would reveal how they are complicit in perpetuating Western values of individualism, ahistoricism, materialism, and consumption that are antithetical to African values associated with community, balance, and connection with the cosmos.
Nevertheless, Toward Afrodiasporic and Afrofuturist Philosophies of Religion has encouraged me to pursue such scholarly endeavors with my students. As such, I believe it to be valuable for academics who wish to empower students to be not just passive learners, but “scholars in training” who can contribute to knowledge production in the field of religion.
Torin Dru Alexander is an associate professor of religion at Winston-Salem State University, North Carolina.
Torin Dru Alexander
Date Of Review:
April 30, 2024
