Humanism: Essays on Race, Religion and Popular Culture
Ebook
Who are the "Nones"? What does humanism say about race, religion and popular culture? How do race, religion and popular culture inform and affect humanism?
The demographics of the United States are changing, marked most profoundly by the religiously unaffiliated, or what we have to come to call the "Nones". Spread across generations in the United States, this group encompasses a wide range of philosophical and ideological perspectives, from some in line with various forms of theism to those who are atheistic, and all sorts of combinations in between. Similar changes to demographics are taking place in Europe and elsewhere.
Humanism: Essays on Race, Religion and Popular Culture provides a much-needed humanities-based analysis and description of humanism in relation to these cultural markers. Whereas most existing analysis attempts to explain humanism through the natural and social sciences (the "what" of life), Anthony B. Pinn explores humanism in relation to "how" life is arranged, socialized, ritualized, and framed. This ground-breaking publication brings together old and new essays on a wide range of topics and themes, from the African-American experience, to the development of humanist churches, and the lyrics of Jay Z.
A ground-breaking exploration of the nature and meaning of humanism from a humanities perspective, offering a corrective to the dominance of explanations from the natural and social sciences.
Written by a leading-voice in humanism and religious studies, with an international and cutting-edge reputation
Offers a corrective to the dominance of natural and social scientific exploration of humanism, by exploring the phenomenon from a humanities perspective
Includes new and existing essays by the author, all with contextualizing introductions; examples discussed range from humanist churches to the lyrics of Jay Z
The first volume to bring together humanism, race, religion and popular culture in an explicit manner
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Sisyphus, Humanism, and the Challenge of Three
Section One: Race
1. Racing Humanism: Two Examples for Context
2. The Ongoing Challenge of Race
3. African Americans Living Li(f)e
4. Does Race Have a Religion? On the 'Faith' of Du Bois
Section Two: Religion
5. Nimrod Is a Hero…and God Is a Problem
6. Humanism and the Rethinking of a King's King
7. Putting Jesus in His Place
8. Gathering the Godless: Intentional 'Communities' and Ritualizing Ordinary Life
Section Three: Cultural Production
9. Learning to Be Cool, or Making Due With What We Do
10. End of the 'End': Humanism, Hip Hop and Death
11. Speaking in Public: The Problem of Theistic Language for Collective Life
Epilogue: Sisyphus's Happiness
Bibliography
Thoughtful and timely, insightful and compelling, this collection of essays takes humanism in new and needed directions. To be warmly welcomed.
As humanism grows and develops, the evolving field of humanist studies needs to catch up with both its growing diversity and its intellectual rigor. Professor Pinn is in the vanguard of this endeavor and these essays are an essential contribution to this academic debate.
This is classic Tony Pinn, eloquently and effortlessly exploring religion as human meaning making through the prisms of race, religion, ritual and popular culture; criticizing the ways that theism has limited human flourishing and community; and encouraging secular and humanist thinkers to take up a more positive and constructive engagement with the religious, even with the Bible. Such a deeply moral, deeply positive humanism is exactly where we should be at this cultural and political moment, “somewhere,” as he puts it, “between absurdity and happiness.
- Title: Humanism: Essays on Race, Religion and Popular Culture
- Author: Anthony B. Pinn
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2015
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781472581440, 9781472581426, 1472581423, 147258144X
- Resource ID: LLS:9781472581440
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-11T00:59:31Z
Dr. Anthony Pinn’s publications range from early explorations of the problem of moral evil, to ongoing interests in African American humanist positions, efforts to pay attention to the biophysical and discursive weight of bodies, and ongoing attention to theory and method in the study of African American religion, specifically, and theology and religious studies more generally.