Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America

by Theophus H. Smith

This book provides a sophisticated new interdisciplinary interpretation of the formulation and evolution of African American religion and culture. Theophus Smith argues for the central importance of "conjure"--a magical means of transforming reality--in black spirituality and culture. Smith shows that the Bible, the sacred text of Western civilization, has in fact functioned as a magical formulary for African Americans. Going back to slave religion, and continuing in black folk practice and literature to the present day, the Bible has provided African Americans with ritual prescriptions for prophetically re-envisioning, and thereby transforming, their history and culture. In effect the Bible is a "conjure book" for prescribing cures and curses, and for invoking extraordinary and Divine powers to effect changes in the conditions of human existence--and to bring about justice and freedom. Biblical themes, symbols, and figures like Moses, the Exodus, the Promised Land, and the
Suffering Servant, as deployed by African Americans, have crucially formed and reformed not only black culture, but American society as a whole. Smith examines not only the religious and political uses of conjure, but its influence on black aesthetics, in music, drama, folklore, and literature. The concept of conjure, he shows, is at the heart of an indigenous and still vital spirituality, with exciting implications for reformulating the next generation of black studies and black theology. Even more broadly, Smith proposes, "conjuring culture" can function as a new paradigm for understanding Western religious and cultural phenomena generally.

Genres: History, Africa, Nonfiction, Religion

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Andrew Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read but a stimulating look at afro-American culture and history using the concepts of René Girard.

[Iris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is difficult to rate. In places, this book is smart and insightful four star quality, but in others it is of a muddled and arcane two star quality. Taken as a whole, three stars seems about right.

It's argument is unevenly executed so that it ranges from the invigorating to the frustrating from one section to the next. The book's structure and scope are commendable, though I suspect some of the text's unevenness results from this, as the author moves back and forth from areas with which he is quite confident into areas he has to stretch to discuss, and back again. Oftentimes, the author moves from a discussion of concrete people, events, and practices, to sweeping theological claims without providing the interpretive tissue required to join those two dimensions.

This is especially problematic given the author's aim to formulate a meaningful theological place for conjure work. His conjure ends up feeling like a sock puppet for fairly standard liberation theology views. He does extract some meaningful praxis from conjure, but he does so largely by eliding actual conjure and transforming its methods into metaphors.

I *like* liberation theology and believe that it could be enriched by conjure, but for that to happen, I think we need to see conjure more clearly 'in itself,' separate from liberation theology's concerns. In part, because I think a 'conjure' theology could exert some meaningful critical force on the tendency toward abstraction in lot of liberation theology discourse. However, here, that abstraction remains.