Defense Date

4-1-2016

Graduation Date

2016

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Theology

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Gerald Boodoo

Committee Member

Elochukwu Uzukwu

Committee Member

Elisabeth Vasko

Keywords

Blues, Coloniality, Decolonial Thought, Theology of Revelation

Abstract

Decolonizing Revelation: A Spatial Reading of the Blues demonstrates that the cultural phenomenon of the blues is an indigenous way of knowing that offsets the hidden logic of racialized dominance within modern Christian understandings of revelation. In distinction from the Christian, Religious, and racialized understandings of the blues, this dissertation focuses on the space in which the blues emerges, the Delta Region of the United States. By attending to space, this dissertation shows how critical consideration of geography and region can reveal nuances that are often veiled behind racialized and theologized ways of understanding the people of the Delta Region. Reading the blues in space discloses the ways in which the blues dislocates the confines of interpreters that label it a racialized phenomenon on one hand, and "the devil's music" on the other. By wresting the blues from colonialist and racist logics, this dissertation contends that the space that produces the blues can be recovered as a viable resource for reimagining a theology of revelation.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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