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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
The Bible As Read By African Americans, Vincent L. Wimbush
The Bible As Read By African Americans, Vincent L. Wimbush
CGU Faculty Publications and Research
African Americans engagements with the Bible suggest much not only about who the people of the Bible are, how they sound and think, and what they mean and communicate but also about how Scripture functions in society and culture. African Americans use of the Bible as Scripture is varied and wide-ranging and has a storied history. These engagements should be understood as reflections of a people's long and continuing efforts to define and empower themselves. They are at once "readings" of the people of the worlds with which they were forced to negotiate. These engagements reflect the people's consistent aspiration …
Contemptus Mundi Means "...Bound For The Promised Land...": Religion From The Site Of Cultural Marronage, Vincent L. Wimbush
Contemptus Mundi Means "...Bound For The Promised Land...": Religion From The Site Of Cultural Marronage, Vincent L. Wimbush
CGU Faculty Publications and Research
The basic assumption behind this project is that all humanistic inquiries more or less explicitly involve self-discovery. I have chosen to try to be more rather than less explicit. I have realized for some time now that I am both a problem and a promise for the primary field in which I was academically socialized: biblical (New Testament) studies as defined and practiced by the guilds of biblical scholars in North America. I have provided enough evidence that I can “play the game” that the guilds require in terms of publications, research projects, and general scholarly orientation. And as such …
Past As Present, Present As Past: Freedom To Read The Self And The World, Vincent L. Wimbush
Past As Present, Present As Past: Freedom To Read The Self And The World, Vincent L. Wimbush
CGU Faculty Publications and Research
Historical inquiry of the sort that seeks, in its different but necessarily naive ways, merely to "establish the facts," or merely to "defend the race," or "my people," or "my religion/denomination," or "our position," simply to accuse the other as source of current problems, needs to be identified for what it is and renounced. Such "history" is problematic, not so much because it has no insights or tells no truths, but because it cannot generally even adequately, or critically, problematize the "facts" and "truths" it discovers and engages. Put another way, this type of history seems unable to address the …
Book Review: Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations In Black America, Vincent L. Wimbush
Book Review: Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations In Black America, Vincent L. Wimbush
CGU Faculty Publications and Research
No abstract provided.
Reading Texts As Reading Ourselves: A Chapter In The History Of African American Biblical Interpretation, Vincent L. Wimbush
Reading Texts As Reading Ourselves: A Chapter In The History Of African American Biblical Interpretation, Vincent L. Wimbush
CGU Faculty Publications and Research
Literature, especially religious literature, ideally aims to trigger degrees of empathy in readers who share a particular universe of meaning, with the goal of entertaining, provoking, challenging, and persuading. The literary text that has achieved something of the status of a "classic" is one that has consistently--that is, "beyond its time...beyond its space"--proved to be engaging and empathetic, consistently challenging and inspiring the spirit, provoking thoughts and arresting the imagination of those generally sharing a universe of meaning, or culture. But such texts, precisely because of their empathy-producing qualities, should also inspire among readers again and again over time a …
African Americans And The Bible: Outline Of An Interpretive History, Vincent L. Wimbush
African Americans And The Bible: Outline Of An Interpretive History, Vincent L. Wimbush
CGU Faculty Publications and Research
Since every reading of important texts, especially mythic or religious texts, reflects a "reading" or assessment of one's world, and since the Bible has from the founding of the nation served as an icon, a history of African Americans' historical readings of the Bible is likely to reflect their historical self-understandings—as Africans in America.
Biblical-Historical Study As Liberation: Toward An Afro-Christian Hermeneutic, Vincent L. Wimbush
Biblical-Historical Study As Liberation: Toward An Afro-Christian Hermeneutic, Vincent L. Wimbush
CGU Faculty Publications and Research
In the sense that they have always sought to know and articulate "the biblical position" on all matters pertaining to existence, including liberation for their people, all African American leaders--predominantly, though not exclusively, Christian--have been biblical theologians. But very few of these leaders have had as their major concern the academic study of the Bible apart from preparation for, and acceptance of, the presuppositions of confessional vocations. The paucity of African American biblical scholars only confirms the point.