Jimmy's Faith: James Baldwin, Disidentification, and the Queer Possibilities of Black Religion (1)

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Synopsis
QSpirit Top 24 LGBTQ Christian Books of 2024A novel approach to understanding the work of James Baldwin and its transformative potentialThe relationship of James Baldwin’s life and work to Black religion is in many ways complex and confounding. What is he doing through his literary deployment of religious language and symbols?Despite Baldwin’s disavowal of Christianity in his youth, he continued to engage the symbols and theology of Christianity in works such as The Amen Corner, Just Above My Head, and others. With Jimmy’s Faith, author Christopher W. Hunt shows how Baldwin’s usage of those religious symbols both shifted their meaning and served as a way for him to build his own religious and spiritual vision. Engaging José Esteban Muñoz’s theory of disidentification as a queer practice of imagination and survival, Hunt demonstrates the ways in which James Baldwin disidentifies with and queers Black Christian language and theology throughout his literary corpus. Baldwin’s vision is one in which queer sexuality signifies the depth of love’s transforming pos­sibilities, the arts serve as the (religious) medium of knitting Black community together, an agnostic and affective mysticism undermines Christian theological discourse, “androgyny” troubles the gender binary, and the Black child signifies the hope for a world made new. In disidentifying with Christian symbols, Jimmy’s Faith reveals how Baldwin imagines both religion and the world “oth­erwise,” offering a model of how we might do the same for our own communities and ourselves.
Copyright:
2025

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
240 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781531508821
Related ISBNs:
9781531508814, 9781531508807
Publisher:
Fordham University Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Fordham University Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Literature and Fiction, Religion and Spirituality, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, Social Studies, Language Arts
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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