Beyond Man reimagines the meaning and potential of a philosophy of religion that better attends to the inextricable links among religion, racism, and colonialism. An Yountae, Eleanor Craig, and the contributors reckon with the colonial and racial implications of the field's history by staging a conversation with Black, Indigenous, and decolonial studies. In their introduction, An and Craig point out that European-descended Christianity has historically defined itself by its relation to the other while paradoxically claiming to represent and speak to humanity in its totality. The topics include secularism, the Eucharist's relation to Blackness, and sixteenth-century Brazilian cannibalism rituals as well as an analysis of how Mircea Eliade's conception of the sacred underwrites settler colonial projects and imaginaries. Throughout, the contributors also highlight the theorizing of Afro-Caribbean thinkers such as Sylvia Wynter, C. L. R. James, Frantz Fanon, and Aimé Césaire whose work disrupts the normative Western categories of religion and philosophy.
Contributors. An Yountae, Ellen Armour, J. Kameron Carter, Eleanor Craig, Amy Hollywood, Vincent Lloyd, Filipe Maia, Mayra Rivera, Devin Singh, Joseph R. Winters
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Challenging Modernity/Coloniality in Philosophy of Religion / Eleanor Craig and An Yountae 1
1. Decolonial Options for a Fragile Secular / Devin Singh 32
2. Embodied Counterpoetics: Syliva Wynter on Religion and Race / Mayra Rivera 57
3. We Have Never Been Human/e: The Laws of Burgos and the Philosophy of Coloniality in the Americas / Eleanor Craig 86
4. The Puritan Atheism of C.L.R. James / Vincent Lloyd 108
5. Decolonizing Spectatorship: Photography, Theology, and New Media / Ellen Armour 127
6. The Excremental Sacred: A Paraliturgy / J. Kameron Carter 151
7. On Violence and Redemption: Fanon and Colonial Theodicy / An Yountae 204
8. Alter-Carnation: Notes on Cannibalism and Coloniality in the Brazilian Context / Filipe Maia 226
9. The Sacred Gone Astray: Eliade, Fanon, Wynter, and the Terror of Colonial Settlement /Joseph R. Winters 245
10. Response—On Impassioned Claims: The Possibility of Doing Philosophy of Religion Otherwise / Amy Hollywood 269
Contributors 287
Index 291