About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherPalgrave Macmillan

ISBN-101137454334

ISBN-139781137454331

eBay Product ID (ePID)201570262

Product Key Features

Number of PagesXiii, 222 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameJames Baldwin's Understanding of God : Overwhelming Desire and Joy

SubjectAmerican / African American, Sociology / General, History, Sociology of Religion, Christianity / Literature & the Arts

Publication Year2014

TypeTextbook

AuthorJosiah Ulysses Young III

Subject AreaLiterary Criticism, Religion, Social Science

SeriesBlack Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice Ser.

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight142.5 Oz

Item Length8.9 in

Item Width5.4 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2014-030483

Dewey Edition23

Reviews"James Baldwin's Understanding of God: Overwhelming Desire and Joy, by Josiah Ulysses Young, III, is an important contribution to a growing body of religious and theological scholarship concerned with the life and literary legacy of James Baldwin. James Baldwin's Understanding of God is a 14-chapter book. Each chapter covers moments in a life that lasted 63 years. ... This reviewer highly recommends it." (Ronald B. Neal, Black Theology, Vol. 14, April, 2016) "Young leads readers through a labyrinth of Baldwin's most intimate yet public reflections on the America he knew through a life marked by the tensions between alienation and desire, foreclosure, and yearning. Like the subject of this volume, Young is incisive, somber, candid and loving as he extends Baldwin's vision that 'artists . . . must tell the truth . . . make a confession, and thus surface those dilemmas and secrets that have to do with who we truly are as human beings.' Moreover, he analyzes the virtues underlying such an expensive and fragile vision, associating Baldwin's aesthetic sensibilities with a rare yet desperately needed insight into the sacred." - Dianne M. Stewart, Associate Professor, Religion and African American Studies, Emory University, USA "Offering a rich and insightful study of America's most notable prophetic thinker, James Baldwin's Understanding of God breaks disciplinary boundaries by placing the works of James Arthur Baldwin within the theological contours of Africana religious studies. Young dares to explore the spatial dimensions of what Charles Long calls the 'extrachurch' and argues that it is within the joys and sorrows of black life, the lyricism of the blues, the extemporaneity of jazz, and the sensuality and love of humanity that we find James Baldwin's theology." - Tracey Elaine Hucks, James D. Vail III Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, Davidson College, USA, "Young leads readers through a labyrinth of Baldwin's most intimate yet public reflections on the America he knew through a life marked by the tensions between alienation and desire, foreclosure, and yearning. Like the subject of this volume, Young is incisive, somber, candid and loving as he extends Baldwin's vision that 'artists . . . must tell the truth . . . make a confession, and thus surface those dilemmas and secrets that have to do with who we truly are as human beings.' Moreover, he analyzes the virtues underlying such an expensive and fragile vision, associating Baldwin's aesthetic sensibilities with a rare yet desperately needed insight into the sacred." - Dianne M. Stewart, Associate Professor, Religion and African American Studies, Emory University, USA "Offering a rich and insightful study of America's most notable prophetic thinker, James Baldwin's Understanding of God breaks disciplinary boundaries by placing the works of James Arthur Baldwin within the theological contours of Africana religious studies. Young dares to explore the spatial dimensions of what Charles Long calls the 'extrachurch' and argues that it is within the joys and sorrows of black life, the lyricism of the blues, the extemporaneity of jazz, and the sensuality and love of humanity that we find James Baldwin's theology." - Tracey Elaine Hucks, James D. Vail III Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, Davidson College, USA

Number of Volumes1 vol.

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal818/.5409 B

Table Of ContentTable of Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Credo 3. Born in a Christian Culture 4. 'In Search of a Majority' 5. Scarred by the Rock 6. Opening the Unusual Door 7. Coming out the Wilderness 8. Weighing Your Gods and You 9. Declining to 'Imitate the Son of the Morning' 10. That Train's Long Gone 11. The Black Issue of the Holy Ghost 12. Ain't Nothing but Us Up the Road 13. A Miracle of Coherence and Release 14. Postscript ?

SynopsisJames Baldwin's Understanding of God focuses on Baldwin's experiences as a gifted black writer who fought valiantly against racism and wrote openly about homosexual relationships. Baldwin's God is a "mysteriously impersonal" force he calls love, 'something . . . like a fire, like the wind, something which can change you.' For Baldwin, "To be with God is really to be involved with some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you." Young covers James Baldwin's life from his mid-teens to his death through accounts and analyses of his essays and novels. Sometimes his "theology" - what he has to say about his "God" - comes straight from his text; other times Young deduces it from his nonfiction prose and the implications of his novels and their protagonists. Young places those works in the context of several historic events that were taking place in the United States at that time., James Baldwin's Understanding of God focuses on Baldwin's experiences as a gifted black writer who fought valiantly against racism and wrote openly about homosexual relationships. Baldwin's God is a "mysteriously impersonal" force he calls love, 'something, This book focuses on Baldwin's experiences as a gifted black writer who fought valiantly against racism and wrote openly about homosexual relationships. Baldwin's God is a 'mysteriously impersonal' force he calls love- 'something . . . like a fire, like the wind, something which can change you.'

LC Classification NumberBL60