- The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Identifying Race and Religion
- Religion and Race in the Early Modern Iberian Atlantic
- Religion, Race, and American Empire
- Gendering the History of Race and Religion
- Religion, Race, and Sexuality
- Religion, Race, and Popular Culture
- Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century America
- American Missionaries and Race
- Mormonism and Race
- Catholicism and Race
- American Judaism and Race
- Islam and Race in American History
- Buddhism and Race
- Religion, Race, and Humanism
- Religion and Race in American Music
- Documentary Photography and the Visual Politics of Race and Religion
- Race, Religion, and Documentary Film
- Religion, Race, and Sports
- Natives, Religion, and Race in Colonial America
- African and African American Religions in the Early Americas
- Religion and Race in the Greater South, 1500–1800
- Puritans and Race
- Religion and Racial Violence in the Nineteenth Century
- African American Religions in the Nineteenth Century
- Race, Gender, and the Hawaiian Islands Mission
- Asian American Religions from Chinese Exclusion to 1965
- South Asian Religions in Contemporary America
- African American Religious Identities in the Twentieth Century
- White Protestants and the Civil Rights Movement
- Black Theologies
- Native American Religions in the Twentieth Century
- Latinos/as and Religious Identities in the Twentieth Century
- Religion, Race, and Immigration in Contemporary America
- Migration and Modern Religious Pluralism
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
The photographs of twentieth-century photographer Roy DeCarava are a rich case study for mapping the visual theater of race and religion in twentieth-century America. Despite visual similarities in his photographs to contemporary documentary photographers, DeCarava contended that claims to document race in fact worked to invest power in the “madness” of “skin color.” Such a statement echoes the teachings of prophets of black urban religion who incorporated critiques of racial classification into their theological visions. Such visual regimes of race and religion were not limited to persons of African descent. Lewis Hine’s photographs of European immigrants arriving on Ellis Island and Dorothea Lange’s photographs of Japanese American internees were also part of the visual politics of race and religion. By structuring the twentieth century’s ascendant visual regimes around DeCarava, this chapter explores how the technologies, aesthetics, and politics of photography shaped the moral theater of race and religion.
Keywords: documentary photography and visual politics, Christianity, Japanese internment, Harlem, Frederick Douglass, Dorothea Lange, Roy DeCarava, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ansel Adams, Langston Hughes
Rachel McBride Lindsey is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theological Studies at St. Louis University. She is the author of A Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America.
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- The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Identifying Race and Religion
- Religion and Race in the Early Modern Iberian Atlantic
- Religion, Race, and American Empire
- Gendering the History of Race and Religion
- Religion, Race, and Sexuality
- Religion, Race, and Popular Culture
- Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century America
- American Missionaries and Race
- Mormonism and Race
- Catholicism and Race
- American Judaism and Race
- Islam and Race in American History
- Buddhism and Race
- Religion, Race, and Humanism
- Religion and Race in American Music
- Documentary Photography and the Visual Politics of Race and Religion
- Race, Religion, and Documentary Film
- Religion, Race, and Sports
- Natives, Religion, and Race in Colonial America
- African and African American Religions in the Early Americas
- Religion and Race in the Greater South, 1500–1800
- Puritans and Race
- Religion and Racial Violence in the Nineteenth Century
- African American Religions in the Nineteenth Century
- Race, Gender, and the Hawaiian Islands Mission
- Asian American Religions from Chinese Exclusion to 1965
- South Asian Religions in Contemporary America
- African American Religious Identities in the Twentieth Century
- White Protestants and the Civil Rights Movement
- Black Theologies
- Native American Religions in the Twentieth Century
- Latinos/as and Religious Identities in the Twentieth Century
- Religion, Race, and Immigration in Contemporary America
- Migration and Modern Religious Pluralism
- Index
