Many of the most important black intellectual movements of the second half of the twentieth century were perceived as secular, if not profane. When religion has figured into scholarly accounts of these moments, it has almost always appeared as tangential or inconsequential. In Spirit in the Dark, Josef Sorett upends this narrative by exploring the ways in which religion continued to animate and organize African American literary visions throughout the years
between the New Negro Renaissance of the 1920s and the Black Arts movement of the 1960s.
Sorett unveils the contours of a literary history that remained preoccupied with religion even as it was typically understood, by authors, readers and critics alike, to be secular. In doing so, he reveals how religion, especially Christianity, remained pivotal to the very ideas and aspirations of African American literature across much of the twentieth century. More specifically, Sorett shows that religion and spirituality are key categories for identifying what is (or is not) perceived to
constitute or contribute to a black culture. By examining figures and movements that have typically been cast as "secular," he offers theoretical insights that blur the boundaries of the "sacred" in scholarship on African American religion and culture. Ultimately, Spirit in the Dark reveals religion to
be an essential ingredient, albeit one that was always questioned and contested, to the forging of an African American literary tradition.
- ISBN10 0199844933
- ISBN13 9780199844937
- Publish Date 22 September 2016 (first published 1 September 2016)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 312
- Language English