Invitation to a Speaking-Book Signing Event

 

The Christian Cenacle Invites you to a great debate, an intellectual conference with Prof. Celucien L. Joseph, Ph.D., the author of “Race, Religion, and the Haitian Revolution.”

Date: Saturday, April 6, 2013
Location: Memorial Hwy Baptist Church
14455 Memorial Hwy, North Miami, Fl 33161

Time: 530-8:00 PM

Info: (754) 423-0737; (305) 846-6415; (954) 740-4035

I would love to see you there if you can make it.

My New Book: Race, Religion, and The Haitian Revolution

I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book entitled Race, Religion, and The Haitian Revolution: Essays on Faith, Freedom, and Decolonization. You can order your copy at CreateSpace or Amazon.

Book Description

Publication Date:December 27, 2012

Race, Religion, and The Haitian Revolution explores the intersections of history, race, religion, decolonization, and revolutionary freedom leading to the founding of the postcolonial state, the Caribbean nation of Haiti, in 1804. Particular attention is given to the place of religion in this freedom story. The book not only examines the multiple legacies and the problem of Enlightenment modernity, imperial colonialism, Western racism and hegemony, but also studies their complex relationships with the institution of slavery, religion, and Black freedom. This present work is a collection of five interdisciplinary essays, which underscore the role of faith in Black Atlantic discourse and Haitian thought in shaping the lives of the people in the Black Diaspora and the Haitian people in particular. Topics range from Makandal’s Postcolonial religious imagination to Boukman’s Liberation Theology, Langston Hughes’ discussion of the role of prophetic religion in the Haitian Revolution to Frederick Douglass’ critiques of Christianity as a “slave religion;” the text also brings in conversation Du Bois’s theory of double consciousness with Fanon’s theory of decolonization and revolutionary humanism.

About the Author

Celucien L. Joseph, Ph.D. (University of Texas at Dallas) is an adjunct Professor of English Language and Literature at Palm Beach State College. Professor Joseph is an interdisciplinary scholar, researcher, and educator; his work is interdisciplinary and intersectional with an emancipative intent. He is interested in the intersections of history, race, religion, literature, cultural identity, and freedom. He is the author of two forthcoming books, Religious Métissage: The Religious Imagination and ideas of Jean Price-Mars (Wipf & Stock, 2013) and Faith, Secular Humanism, and Social Development: Jacques Roumain’s Engagements with Religion and Critical Theory (University Press of America, Inc., 2013). His academic research and teaching interests include the following: Transnational Literature; American and African-American Literature; African American Cultural and Intellectual History;Francophone Studies: Africa and the Caribbean; Anglophone Caribbean Literature; Comparative Afro-Caribbean Studies: History and Literature; Comparative Literature of the African Diaspora; Black Internationalism; Postcolonial and Critical Theory; Race and Religion; Religions in the Black Diaspora; Pragmatic Religious Naturalism; Liberation and Constructive Theologies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………v

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter 1: An Appraisal of Recent Literary and Historiographical Works on

The Haitian Revolution…………………………………………………………………..10

PART I: RELIGION AND DECOLONIZATION: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RELIGION IN

THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION

Chapter 2: The Rhetoric of Prayer: Dutty Boukman, The Discourse of “Freedom from

Below,” and the Politics of God…………………………………………………………34

Chapter 3: Prophetic Religion, Violence, and Black Freedom: Reading Makandal’s Project of Black Liberation through A Fanonian postcolonial lens of decolonization and theory of revolutionary humanism……………………………………………………….56

PART II: UNSETTLED FAITH OR RACE AND RELIGION: REPRESENTING AND

INTERPRETING THE REVOLUTION IN BLACK ATLANTIC THOUGHT

Chapter 4: The Spirit of Revolution, the Spirit of Black Freedom: The Representation of the Haitian Revolution and The Function of Black Religion in Langston Hughes’ “Emperor of Haiti”……………………………………………………………..88

Chapter 5: “A City Upon a Hill”: Haiti, Religion, and Race: Frederick Douglass’

Freedom Discourse and The Significance of The Haitian Revolution as a Freedom Event in Modernity……………………………………………………………..118

Notes……………………………………………………………………………………149

Cornel West as prophet

Reblogged from memoria dei:

I have to thank my friend Jo for sending me the link to this interview.

Cornel West, as he does so well, speaks the truth to power.  It strikes me as an extraordinary example of biblical prophecy in the contemporary world.  I am moved by the unapologetic, deeply nuanced, and yet crystal clear preferential option for the poor:

Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism: Book Review

A review of Alvin Plantinga’s most recent book, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) is published on this website. You  might also want to check out a recent interview with Plantinga on the same topic.

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Forthcoming Speaking Engagement

Dr. Celucien L. Joseph will be speaking at Bethel Evangelical Baptist Church. If you live in the area, please come hear him speaking.

Date : Sunday, May 27 @ 6:30 PM

Topic: “God Will Give You a Sign of Hope and Redemption”

Location:

Bethel Evangelical Baptist Church
1121 NW 8th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FLorida 33311
Phone: 954 523-9312
Fax: 954 523-2234

Beyond Belief: God and Physics

God and Physics

A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss and Richard Dawkins

You can listen to an interesting conversation on the relationship between God and physics.

Source: BBC Radio

Here’s the blurb:

When asked to defend their belief in a Creator God, people of faith often turn to the argument that there must be a First Cause – you can’t create something out of nothing they say, therefore right at the beginning, someone must have been responsible for the first element from which sprang life.

A new book, “A Universe from Nothing”, by the American theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, turns this argument on its head. Not only can something arise out of nothing, but something will always arise out of nothing because physics tells us that nothingness is inherently unstable.

The book has made an enormous impact in the States, making the New York Times’ best sellers list, and it prompted Richards Dawkins to observe that it was “Potentially the most important scientific book with implications for atheism since Darwin”.

So does it knock the argument for God on the head? Are physics and God irreconcilable?

Joining Ernie to discuss whether modern physics leaves any room for God are Dr John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, Dr Usama Hasan, Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University and a part time Imam, and Dr Mark Vernon, Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, London who has degrees in physics, theology and philosophy.

Obama Reflects on Jesus’ Death, Resurrection in Easter Address

Obama Reflects on Jesus’ Death, Resurrection in Easter Address