An Ethos of Blackness

Rastafari Cosmology, Culture, and Consciousness

Vivaldi Jean-Marie

$49.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Columbia University Press
30 November 2023

Family & health

Series: Black Lives in the Diaspora: Past / Present / Future

Rastafari is an Afrocentric social and religious movement that emerged among Afro-Jamaican communities in the 1930s and has many adherents in the Caribbean and worldwide today. This book is a groundbreaking account of Rastafari, demonstrating that it provides a normative conception of Blackness for people of African descent that resists Eurocentric and colonial ideas.

Vivaldi Jean-Marie examines Rastafari's core beliefs and practices, arguing that they constitute a distinctively Black system of norms and values-at once an ethos and a cosmology. He traces Rastafari's origins in enslaved people's strategies of resistance, Jamaican Revivalism, and Garveyism, showing how it incorporates ancestral religious traditions and emancipatory politics. An Ethos of Blackness draws out the significance of practices such as avoiding technological exploitation of natural artifacts and the belief in living in harmony with the natural order. Jean-Marie considers Rastafari's theology, exploring its reinterpretation of biblical scriptures and its foundations in the rejection of Christianity's Eurocentrism and racism. However, he insists, before Rastafari can fulfill its promise of liberation for people of African descent, it must confront its failure to include women and redress sexism.

Through rigorous and sensitive reflections on Rastafari culture and cosmology, this book offers deeply original insights into the Black theological imagination.

By: Vivaldi Jean-Marie
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm,
ISBN: 9780231209779
ISBN 10: 0231209770
Series: Black Lives in the Diaspora: Past / Present / Future
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 30 November 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface 1. Resistance to British Colonialism and the Rise of Two Forms of Subjectivity in “Yamaye” 2. The Genealogy of Rastafari Cosmology and Its Distinctive Ethos of Blackness 3. Rastafari Cosmology, Natural Artifacts, and the Ethos of Blackness 4. Rastafari’s Theology of Blackness: A Eurocentric God Cannot Love Africans and People of African Descent 5. Rastafari I-Talk and Black Consciousness 6. The Limit of Rastafari Cosmology: Gender Inequality and the Failure to Liberate Rasta Women Notes Bibliography Index

Vivaldi Jean-Marie teaches in the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University and is a professor of philosophy at the City University of New York. He is the author of Vodou Cosmology and the Haitian Revolution in the Enlightenment Ideals of Kant and Hegel (2018), Reflections on Jean Améry: Torture, Resentment, and Homelessness as the Mind’s Limits (2018), Kierkegaard: History and Eternal Happiness (2008), and Fanon: Collective Ethics and Humanism (2007).

Reviews for An Ethos of Blackness: Rastafari Cosmology, Culture, and Consciousness

An Ethos of Blackness takes a unique approach to the social and religious history of Rastafari and how the practice identifies, advances, and meets the ideals of Blackness more broadly, but rooted within Jamaican society specifically. Jean-Marie reevaluates Rastafari in its development and practice within the framework of cosmology to explain its origin, evolution, and, to some extent, its future. -- Iyabo Osiapem, William & Mary