Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures (Culture on the Edge: Studies in Identity Formation)

Newton, Richard W., Jr.

ISBN 10: 1781795479 / ISBN 13: 9781781795477

Published by Equinox, 2020

About this Item

pp. 322.

Seller Inventory # 26380343231

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures (Culture on the Edge: Studies in Identity Formation)
• Publisher: Equinox
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1781795479
• ISBN 13: 9781781795477
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Richard W. Newton, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.