Continuing his project of critical analysis of the scriptural formation of culture, Vincent L. Wimbush has gathered in this book essays by scholars of various backgrounds and orientations that focus in different registers on the theme of masquerade as the “play-element” in modern culture. Masquerade functions as window onto the mimetic performances, dynamics, arrangements, psycho-logics, and politics (“scripturalizing”) by which the “made-up” becomes fixed or realities or (“scripturalization”). Modern-world racialization (and its attendant explosions into racialisms and racisms) as the hyper-scripturalization of difference in human flesh (registered in psycho-social relations as a type of “scripture”) is argued in this book to be one of the most consequential examples and reflections of masquerade and thereby one of the primary impetuses behind and determinants of the shape of the realities of modernities. The open window onto these realities is facilitated by touchstone references to—not exhaustive treatment of—a now famous eighteenth-century life story, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1789). This story told by a complexly positioned Black-fleshed self-acknowledged ex-slave/“stranger” is itself a “mask-ing” that throws light on the predominantly white Anglophone world as masking (as scriptural formation). Equiano/Vassa’s story as masking helps makes a compelling case for analyzing through Black flesh the ongoing shaping of the modern and the perduring mixed when not also devastating consequences.

These essays, written over more than thirty years of Vincent L. Wimbush's career as a scholar, provide a response to the nearly universal, persistent, and sedimented modern-world hyper-signification of Black flesh, always needing to be framed, humiliated, policed, and dirtied. Because Wimbush is a scholar of religion as culture-having to do with social practices and their psycho-politics as regimes of knowledge, discourse, formation, and power relations-his ex-centric transdisciplinary interest in scriptures has been viewed, in some circles, as controversial. Yet it is Wimbush's linkage of the modern hyper-signification of Black flesh-leading to racialization and racism, especially anti-Black racism-to the scriptural as shorthand for discourse and relations of power that makes this work compelling.

Scripturalizing the Human is a transdisciplinary collection of essays that reconceptualizes and models "scriptural studies" as a critical, comparative set of practices with broad ramifications for scholars of religion and biblical studies. This critical historical and ethnographic project is focused on scriptures/scripturalization/scripturalizing as shorthand for the (psycho-cultural and socio-political) "work" we make language do for and to us. Each essay focuses on an instance of or situation involving such work, engaging with the Bible, Book of Mormon, Bhagavata Purana, and other sacred texts, artifacts, and practices in order to explore historical and ongoing constructions of the human. Contributors use the category of "scriptures"-understood not simply as texts, but as freighted shorthand for the dynamics and ultimate politics of language-as tools for self-illumination and self-analysis. The significance of the collection lies in the window it opens to the rich and complex view of the highs and lows of human-(un-)making as it establishes the connections between a seemingly basic and apolitical religious category and a set of larger social-cultural phenomena and dynamics.

Scripturalizing the Human is a transdisciplinary collection of essays that reconceptualizes and models "scriptural studies" as a critical, comparative set of practices with broad ramifications for scholars of religion and biblical studies. This critical historical and ethnographic project is focused on scriptures/scripturalization/scripturalizing as shorthand for the (psycho-cultural and socio-political) "work" we make language do for and to us. Each essay focuses on an instance of or situation involving such work, engaging with the Bible, Book of Mormon, Bhagavata Purana, and other sacred texts, artifacts, and practices in order to explore historical and ongoing constructions of the human. Contributors use the category of "scriptures"-understood not simply as texts, but as freighted shorthand for the dynamics and ultimate politics of language-as tools for self-illumination and self-analysis. The significance of the collection lies in the window it opens to the rich and complex view of the highs and lows of human-(un-)making as it establishes the connections between a seemingly basic and apolitical religious category and a set of larger social-cultural phenomena and dynamics.

Refractions of the Scriptural is a transdisciplinary collection of essays that seeks to construct a new field of scholarly inquiry with scriptures as a fraught category, analytical wedge, and site for excavation and problematization. The book focuses on the ways in which individual and social bodies manipulate-and are manipulated by- the politics and power encoded in language and formalized canonical knowledge. Scriptures, in this sense, function as complex phenomena that are instrumental to social conservatism as well as social critique and social change. The essays in this volume, written by established and up-and-coming scholars across a wide range of disciplines, seek to locate, engage, and interpret the ways in which the scriptural shapes and reshapes people and the dynamics of identity formation. The chapters are organized around four domains or types of inquiry: the cognitive, the conscientized, the inscriptive, and the formative. It will be of interest to scholars of religion, as well as those interested more broadly in critical social and historical studies.

As a complex historical phenomenon, asceticism raises the question about ordinary impulses, the orientation and practices, the power dynamics and politics with transcendental religions. The question of the role of asceticism has often been overlooked in examining the New Testament. This book is both comprehensive and comparative in its representation of how the question of asceticism might reorder the way in which we interpret the New Testament.
Looking at the New Testament from an ascetic perspective asks questions about issues including the milieu of Jesus and Paul, and the social practices of self-denial, and considers the Scriptural texts in light of a desire to separate oneself from the world. In interpreting all the books in the New Testament, this collection is the first effort to take seriously the crucial role played by asceticism--and its detractors--in the formation of the New Testament.

The question of the role of asceticism has often been overlooked in examining the New Testament. This book is both comprehensive and comparative in its representation of how the question of asceticism might reorder the way in which we interpret the New Testament.

Refractions of the Scriptural is a transdisciplinary collection of essays that seeks to construct a new field of scholarly inquiry with scriptures as a fraught category, analytical wedge, and site for excavation and problematization. The book focuses on the ways in which individual and social bodies manipulate-and are manipulated by- the politics and power encoded in language and formalized canonical knowledge. Scriptures, in this sense, function as complex phenomena that are instrumental to social conservatism as well as social critique and social change. The essays in this volume, written by established and up-and-coming scholars across a wide range of disciplines, seek to locate, engage, and interpret the ways in which the scriptural shapes and reshapes people and the dynamics of identity formation. The chapters are organized around four domains or types of inquiry: the cognitive, the conscientized, the inscriptive, and the formative. It will be of interest to scholars of religion, as well as those interested more broadly in critical social and historical studies.

The Bible and the American Myth challenges the academic study of the Bible to orient itself to cultural criticism. The essays model an approach to the study of the Bible that entails efforts to fathom not only the meanings of texts, but the role of texts in the construction of meaning.

It is all the more fascinating and poignant that the essayists are students of theology of varied backgrounds. What they have in common is the pursuit of theological studies at the mouth of Harlem. This location at the turn of the century inspired them to think differently about the focus and agenda of theological studies, especially biblical studies. Each essayist is convinced that the study of the Bible should entail the study of cultural construction and deconstruction, the study of the making and unmaking of cultural myths that shape existence.

Characterizing Olaudah Equiano's eighteenth-century narrative of his life as a type of "scriptural story" that connects the Bible with identity formation, Vincent L. Wimbush's White Men's Magic probes not only how the Bible and its reading played a crucial role in the first colonial contacts between black and white persons in the North Atlantic but also the process and meaning of what he terms "scripturalization." By this term, Wimbush means a social-psychological-political discursive structure or "semiosphere" that creates a reality and organizes a society in terms of relations and communications. Because it is based on the particularities of Equiano's narrative, Wimbush's theoretical work is not only grounded but inductive, and shows that scripturalization is bigger than either the historical or the literary Equiano. Scripturalization was not invented by Equiano, he says, but it is not quite the same after Equiano.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789, was one of the earliest and remains to this day one of the best-known English language slave narratives. Characterizing Olaudah Equiano's eighteenth-century narrative of his life as a type of ''scriptural story'' that connects the Bible with identity formation, Vincent L. Wimbush's White Men's Magic probes not only how the Bible and its reading played a crucial role in the first colonial contacts between black and white persons in the North Atlantic but also the process and meaning of what he terms ''scripturalization.'' By this term, Wimbush means ''a social-psychological-political discursive structure'' or ''semiosphere'' that creates a reality and organizes a society in terms of relations and communications. This scripturalization, achieved by the British to establish a colonial and racialized society in and through the promotion of literacy and the Bible as a ''fetishized center-object,'' was also performed by an abject outsider or stranger like Equiano through his reading of the Bible as well as his own writing with the goal of imagining and promoting a more inclusive society. It is for this reason that Wimbush calls Equiano's narrative a ''scriptural story,'' and he argues that this is why the talking book trope appears repeatedly in writings of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century black Atlantic writers. He identifies three different types of scripturalization: (1) scripturalization as social-cultural matrix and comparative magic; (2) scripturalization in the service of nationalization and for the purpose of naturalization; and (3) scripturalization in negotiation and for resistance. Because it is based on the particularities of Equiano's narrative, Wimbush's theoretical work is not only grounded but inductive. Wimbush shows that scripturalization is bigger than either the historical or the literary Equiano. Scripturalization was not invented by Equiano, he says, but it is not quite the same after Equiano.

From meditation and fasting to celibacy and anchoretism, the ascetic impulse has been an enduring and complex phenomenon throughout history. Offering a sweeping view of this elusive and controversial aspect of religious life and culture, Asceticism looks at the ascetic impulse from a unique vantage point. Cross-cultural, cross-religious and multidisciplinary in nature, these essays provide a broad historical and comparative perspective on asceticism - a subject rarely studied outside the context of individual religious tradtions. The work represents the input of more than forty preeminent scholars in a wide range of fields and discilplines, and analyses asceticism from antequity to the present European, Near Eastern, African, and North American settings.

MisReading America presents original research on and conversation about reading formations in American communities of color, using the phenomenon of the reading of scriptures-''scripturalizing''-as an analytical wedge. Scriptures here are understood as shorthand for complex social phenomena, practices, and dynamics. The authors take up scripturalizing as a window onto the self-understandings, politics, practices, and orientations of marginalized communities. These communities have in common the context that is the United States, with the challenges it holds for all regarding: pressure to conform to conventional-canonical forms of communication, representation, and embodiment (mimicry); opportunities to speak back to and confront and overturn conventionality (interruptions); and the need to experience ongoing meaningful and complex relationships (reorientation) to the centering politics, practices, and myths that define ''America.''

"'I love the Lord, He heard my cry, ' Deacon cries out as the newly gathered congregation, now seated in their pews, echoes his words in a plaintive tune". Thus begins the Devotional at St. John Progressive Baptist Church, one of many Afro-Baptist services that Walter Pitts observed in the dual role of anthropologist and church pianist. Based on extensive fieldwork in black Baptist churches in rural Texas, this is a major new study of the African origins of African-American forms of worship. Over a period of five years, Pitts, a scholar of anthropology and linguistics, played the piano at and recorded numerous worship services. Offering an extensive history of Afro-Baptist religion in the American South, he compares the ritual structures he observed with those of traditional African worship and other religious rituals of African origin in the New World. Through these historical comparisons, coupled with sociolinguistic analysis, Pitts uncovers striking parallels between Afro-Baptist services and the rituals of Western and Central Africa, as well as African-derived rituals in the United States Sea Islands, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Pitts demonstrates that African and African-American worship share an underlying binary structure: the somber melancholy of the first ritual frame and the joyful, ecstatic trance of the second frame, both essential to the fulfillment of that structure. Of particular interest is his discovery of the way in which the deliberate heightening and strategic suppression of "black English" contribute to this binary structure of worship. This highly original study, with a foreword by Vincent Wimbush, creates a memorable portrait of this vital, yet misunderstood aspectof African-American culture. A model for the investigation of African retentions in the diaspora, Old Ship of Zion will be of keen interest to students and scholars of cultural anthropology, religious studies, and African-American studies, as well as those concerned with the culture of the diaspora, the investigation of syncretism, folklore, and ethnomusicology.

In this book Vincent Wimbush seeks to problematize what we call "scriptures," a word first used to refer simply to "things written," the registration of basic information. In the modern world the word came to be associated almost exclusively with the center- and power-defining "sacred" texts of "world religions." Wimbush argues that this narrowing of the valence of the term was a decisive development for western culture. His purpose is to reconsider the initially broad and politically charged use of the term: "scriptures" are excavated not merely as texts to be read but understood as discourse: as mimetic rituals and practices; as ideologically-charged orientations to and prescribed behaviors in the world; as structures of relationships and social formations; as forms of communication. Wimbush is naming and constructing a new transdisciplinary critical project, which uses the historical and modern experiences of the Black Atlantic as resources for framing, categorization, and analysis. Using Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart as a touchstone, each chapter offers a close reading and analysis of a representative moment in the formation of the Black Atlantic, regarded as part of a history of modern human consciousness and conscientization. Such a history, he says, is reflected in the major turns in what he calls scripturalectics, part of the construction of the modern world, defined as efforts to manage or control knowledge and meaning.