Words Made Flesh: Sylvia Wynter and Religion
The first sustained treatment of religion and religions in the scholarship of a prominent Caribbean thinker

Sylvia Wynter is a profoundly transdisciplinary scholar whose works span an impressive array of theory, literature, science, anthropology, philosophy, and religious studies as well as different forms, including essays, plays, a novel, and a 935-page unpublished manuscript entitled “Black Metamor­phosis: New Natives in a New World.” Whatever the medium, Wynter frequently engages religion as a relevant category of analysis, from reflections on Christianity, Islam, and Rastafarianism to the category and role of religion as a universal aspect of human social production.

Wynter’s writings have received enthusiastic attention by scholars in Black studies, Caribbean theory, critical race theory, literature, and philosophy. But until recently little scholarly writing exists that directly engages the topic of religion in her corpus. Words Made Flesh seeks to fill this gap by focusing exclusively on religion, religions, and religiosity in her work.

Bringing together scholars that provide a wide variety of theoretical perspectives on religion, political theology, social theory, and science studies, this book offers an in-depth engagement with one of the most innovative and important thinkers of the last forty years and illustrates how Wynter’s writing has significant implications for the study of religion and religion’s relationship to colonialism, race, humanism, science, and political theology.

1146200873
Words Made Flesh: Sylvia Wynter and Religion
The first sustained treatment of religion and religions in the scholarship of a prominent Caribbean thinker

Sylvia Wynter is a profoundly transdisciplinary scholar whose works span an impressive array of theory, literature, science, anthropology, philosophy, and religious studies as well as different forms, including essays, plays, a novel, and a 935-page unpublished manuscript entitled “Black Metamor­phosis: New Natives in a New World.” Whatever the medium, Wynter frequently engages religion as a relevant category of analysis, from reflections on Christianity, Islam, and Rastafarianism to the category and role of religion as a universal aspect of human social production.

Wynter’s writings have received enthusiastic attention by scholars in Black studies, Caribbean theory, critical race theory, literature, and philosophy. But until recently little scholarly writing exists that directly engages the topic of religion in her corpus. Words Made Flesh seeks to fill this gap by focusing exclusively on religion, religions, and religiosity in her work.

Bringing together scholars that provide a wide variety of theoretical perspectives on religion, political theology, social theory, and science studies, this book offers an in-depth engagement with one of the most innovative and important thinkers of the last forty years and illustrates how Wynter’s writing has significant implications for the study of religion and religion’s relationship to colonialism, race, humanism, science, and political theology.

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The first sustained treatment of religion and religions in the scholarship of a prominent Caribbean thinker

Sylvia Wynter is a profoundly transdisciplinary scholar whose works span an impressive array of theory, literature, science, anthropology, philosophy, and religious studies as well as different forms, including essays, plays, a novel, and a 935-page unpublished manuscript entitled “Black Metamor­phosis: New Natives in a New World.” Whatever the medium, Wynter frequently engages religion as a relevant category of analysis, from reflections on Christianity, Islam, and Rastafarianism to the category and role of religion as a universal aspect of human social production.

Wynter’s writings have received enthusiastic attention by scholars in Black studies, Caribbean theory, critical race theory, literature, and philosophy. But until recently little scholarly writing exists that directly engages the topic of religion in her corpus. Words Made Flesh seeks to fill this gap by focusing exclusively on religion, religions, and religiosity in her work.

Bringing together scholars that provide a wide variety of theoretical perspectives on religion, political theology, social theory, and science studies, this book offers an in-depth engagement with one of the most innovative and important thinkers of the last forty years and illustrates how Wynter’s writing has significant implications for the study of religion and religion’s relationship to colonialism, race, humanism, science, and political theology.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781531510244
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication date: 06/03/2025
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Justine Bakker (Edited By)
Justine M. Bakker is an Assistant Professor in Comparative Religious Studies at Radboud UniversityNijmegen (the Netherlands). She researches the intersections of race and religion, with a specific focus on alternative, heterodox, and esoteric forms of religiosity and method, theory, and conceptualization in religious studies.

David Kline (Edited By)
David Kline is Teaching Associate Professor in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of Racism and the Weakness of Christian Identity: Religious Autoimmunity (Routledge, 2020).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Sylvia Wynter and Religion
Justine M. Bakker and David Kline | 1

PART ONE: The Religiosity of Being Human

1 On Self-Creation: Autopoiesis and Autoreligion
David Kline | 21

2 Symbolic Rebirth and Ceremonies Never Lost:
African Religions and the Paradoxical Progressivism of Sylvia Wynter’s Work
Oludamini Ogunnaike | 44

3 (Para)religious Traces in Sylvia Wynter’s “Demonic Ground”
Justine M. Bakker | 97

PART TWO: Science, Secularism, and Man’s Political Theology of Race

4 The Wynterian Turn: Human Hybridity in the Natural and Human Sciences
Niki Kasumi Clements | 129

5 The Ceremony beyond the Secular:
Postreligious Autopoetics in Wynter’s The Hills of Hebron
Rafael Vizcaíno | 153

6 Sociogeny, Race, and the Theological Genealogy of Economy
Tapji Garba | 171

PART THREE: Counter-religiosities beyond Man

7 Interrupting the Sanctity of Man: Wynter, Imperial Piety, and the Unruly Sacred
Joseph Winters | 193

8 Moving to a Realm beyond Reason:
Mapping Ontological Sovereignty in Counter-worlds of Liminality
Shamara Wyllie Alhassan | 211

Coda: Nuiscientia
Anthony Bayani Rodriguez | 235

Acknowledgments | 243

Bibliography | 245

Contributors | 263

Index | 267

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