This book explores African spirituality inside and outside of religion, investigating African traditions and perceptions in the study of spirituality across Africa and the African diaspora. It provides an interdisciplinary reflection on key issues in the field and sheds light on everyday experiences. In particular, the volume celebrates the work and mentorship of Professor Jacob K. Olupona, a leading figure in the study of African spiritualities, religions in Africa, and methodological approaches to the study of religion. With chapters by an impressive range of scholars from institutions across Africa, Europe, and North America, this book makes a valuable empirical and theoretical contribution to the development of African religious studies.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
List of tables; List of contributors; Section I Overture – 1. Introduction; 2. Intellectual Nerve and Spiritual Muscle: Homage to Alfredo López Austin and Jacob Olupona; Section II: Beyond Religion? Theorizing and Grounding Everyday Spiritualities – 3. Theorizing Religion for a Post-Colonial Era; 4. The Concept of Sacred Space Phenomenology of Religion revisited; 5. Beyond Religion: Guru Maharaj Ji’s Divine Love Mission; 6. Digitizing Divination! Deconstructing Indigeneity and New Ways of Knowing in African Spiritual Economies; 7. A Kenyan Environmental Prophet: Wangari Maathai’s Contribution to the Ecology of Religion; 8. Yoruba Spirituality in Everyday Life; Section III: Gender, Democracy, & and the Pragmatics of Development – 9. Disruption and Promise: The Religious Powers of Development; 10. The Status and Protection of Non-human Objects in Just War Tradition: A comparative analysis from an African perspective; 11. “Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense”: The Continuing Colonial Dialectic of Democracy and Religion in Nigeria; 12. The Changing and Sustaining Trends of Femaleness in Yoruba Religion in Africa and the Diaspora; 13. Taboos, Rituals and Women’s Spirituality in an African Society; Section IV: Ifa, Islam, and Pentecostalism: Collocating Tradition and Modernity – 14. Ifa and Traditional Yoruba Interpretations of Christianity; 15. Pentecostalism and Modern Nigerian Society; 16. Confronting Religious Pluralism: Islamic Reformers and the Yoruba Belief system; 17. Sweet Melodies! Pioneer Maasai Women Gospel Musicians between Cultural Transmission, Gendered Change and Pentecostal Christianity in Kenya; Section V: The Afro-Atlantic Sacred: Culture, Heritage, Power – 18. African Immigrant Churches, Heritage Language, and Heritage Culture in North America; 19. Catching Bullets with Buttocks: the “obscene” African power of Queen Nanny of the Jamaican Maroons; 20. Afro-Atlantic Citizenship and Sacred Spirit Oaths: Mapping Africana Spiritual Nationhood; 21. Let Somebody Shout Hallelujah: Soundings on African Pentecostalism and Renewal in the Diaspora; Section VI: Epilogue – 22. Professor Jacob K. Olupona: An Intellectual Biography; Index.
Afe Adogame is Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Religion and Society at Princeton Theological Seminary, USA. Ebenezer Obadare is Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow for Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Washington, DC, USA. Wale Adebanwi is Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies and Director of the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
