The Coloniality of the Secular

An Yountae is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Northridge. He is coeditor of Beyond Man: Race, Coloniality, and Philosophy of Religion, also published by Duke University Press, and author of The Decolonial Abyss: Mysticism and Cosmopolitics from the Ruins.

Acknowledgments vii Introduction. A Decolonial Theory of Religion 1 Part I. Genealogies 1. Modernity/Coloniality/Secularity: The Cartography of Struggle 25 2. Crisis and Revolutionary Praxis: Philosophy and Theology of Liberation 57 Part II. Poetics 3. Phenomenology of the Political: Fanon's Religion 97 4. Phenomenology of Race: Poetics of Blackness 113 5. Poetics of World-Making: Creolizing the Sacred, Becoming Archipelago 139 Conclusion 177 Notes 181 Bibliography 205 Index 223

"How are religious sensibilities mobilized in decolonial thought, a tradition that rebels against the legacy of Christianity in shaping colonial ideologies? Challenging the widespread assumption of decolonial thought as 'secular,' The Coloniality of the Secular offers an attentive and insightful reading of some of its most celebrated theorists, surfacing their gestures toward a notion of the sacred. This is an indispensable contribution to theorizing religion in the Americas and reconceiving decolonial thought and practice!" - Mayra Rivera, author of (Poetics of the Flesh) "The Coloniality of the Secular takes on, with critical precision and erudition, the thorny concepts of religion and secularism as both have been mediated by the colonizing and hegemonic yoke of Christianity and its mirror images. Drawing upon a rich array of Africana and decolonial scholarship to make his case, An Yountae presents a provocative decolonial analysis and theory in which creolizing the sacred shines through, transcending the colonial religion/secular divide. A valuable contribution not only to decolonial thought but also to critical modernity studies, religious studies, race studies, and global southern thought." - Lewis R. Gordon, author of (Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization)