Identifying Roots - Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures - Richard W. Newton, Jr.

Identifying Roots - Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures - Richard W. Newton, Jr.

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Identifying Roots - Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures - Richard W. Newton, Jr.

Richard W. Newton, Jr. [+-]
University of Alabama
Richard W. Newton, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. His research examines the making of social difference in light of the anthropology of scriptures. He also curates the teacher-scholar multimedia resource, Sowing the Seed: Fruitful Conversations in Religion, Culture, and Teaching (sowingtheseed.org).

Description

This volume presents a cultural history of Alex Haley’s Roots as a case study in ‘operational acts of identification.’ It examines the strategy and tactics Haley employed in developing a family origin story into an acclaimed national history. Where cultural studies scholars have critiqued notions of sacrosanct ‘rootedness,’ this book shows the fruit of critically identifying those claims. It reframes the concept of ‘roots’ as a theoretical vocabulary and grammar for the anthropology of scriptures – a way of parsing the cultural texts that seem to read us back. Identifying Roots invites scholars of religion to reimagine their place in the humans sciences. Theorizing from a tradition of African American interventions in the history of religion, Richard Newton registers the social dramas and dynamic rhetoric that render the cultural logic of scriptures powerful. Creatively marshaling intellectual history, ethnographic autobiography, Close Reading and discourse analysis, Newton enumerates the consequences for signifying people and cultural texts as intrinsically significant. More than an investigation into Alex Haley’s legacy, Identifying Roots unearths the politics of beginnings and belongings.

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Citation

Newton, Jr., Richard W. . Bibliography. Identifying Roots - Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 283-309 Aug 2020. ISBN 9781781795477. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=41748. Date accessed: 19 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.41748. Aug 2020

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