Toward Collective Life: Black Religious Ethics Under Racial Capitalism 38 views

This dissertation pushes black religious studies to take a spatial turn in order to better analyze the violence of racial capitalism that harms collective life. Drawing from religious studies, black studies, and queer/trans studies, I argue property, family, and gender are spatial arrangements as opposed to assuming they are static entities. These hegemonic relations are composed of ethical, affective, and political imaginaries. Spatial ethics analyzes these assemblages in order to trace how various ways of being in the world can both create new possibilities for collective life and/or reinforce existing hegemonic structures. In so doing, I advance conversations around what constitutes religion and how to critically understand norms. Furthermore, I create an approach that also considers affect, the erotic, and embodiment without claiming any as providing a pure starting point or exit from the logics that shape us all. Rather, I argue that embracing complicity is integral to the fight for the collective.

PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)

religious studies; black studies; trans studies; womanism; spatial theory

English

All rights reserved (no additional license for public reuse)

2025-07-22