Significations: Signs, Symbols and Images in the Interpretation of Religion

Significations is a criticism of several major approaches (phenomenological, historical, theological) to the study of religion in the United States, in which the author attempts (1) a reevaluation of some of the basic issues forming the study of religion in America, (2) an outline of a hermeneutics of conquest and colonialism generated during the formation of the social and symbolic order called the "New World," and (3) a critique of the categories of civil religion, innocence, and theology from the perspective of the black experience and the experience of colonized peoples.

It is a privilege to be associated with the reissue of Significations.

Charles H. Long speaks to the general meaning of religion in history and culture, and specifically about African religion in the Atlantic world, from a unique perspective. He participated in establishing the first curriculum for the study of religion in the College of the University of Chicago. He was a member of, and served subsequently as Chair of, the History of Religions Field and the Committee on African Studies, respectively, at the University of Chicago. Through his teaching at, among others, the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina, Duke University and Syracuse University, and a rich and distinguished list of publications, he has influenced three generations of Historians of Religion and African-American Studies.