Yesterday was the "official" release date for Spirit in the Dark and I'm pleased to share that, per an invitation from Ibram Kendi, the book was featured on the blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). As you'll see below, Professor Kendi asked me to respond to a few basic questions to help provide some context for the book:
Ibram X. Kendi: Tell us a little bit about how you produced Spirit in the Dark. What were your source material, intellectual approaches, and writing style?
Josef Sorett: Most concisely, Spirit in the Dark is a historical project that engages with literary sources to wrestle with theoretical questions in the student of religion. My primary academic audience, in this regard, is comprised of scholars of religion in North America and African American religious history, in particular. Yet most of the sources I’m working with in the book are materials that have been engaged primarily by literary historians. So, in this way, I’m appealing to African American literary history to rethink the sources and narratives of American religious history at the same time that, by focusing on “religion,” I hope to join with other scholars who are complicating the secular orthodoxies that tend to guide literary criticism, in general.
As for sources, more specifically, this work has involved a re-reading of . . .
To continue reading the entire feature, visit the AAIHS blog.