Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil

Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice

by Emilie M. Townes

This groundbreaking book provides an analytical tool to understand how and why evil works in the world as it does. Deconstructing memory, history, and myth as received wisdom, the volume critically examines racism, sexism, poverty, and stereotypes.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction, Religion, Justice, History, Christianity, Race

215 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2006

Reviews

[Brooke Scott]

This was a beast of a book that took me a few months to finish- it’s very academic and sometimes difficult to grasp but I love love love how it breaks down different stereotypes that have been made a part of the American imagination and how they have become embedded in our beliefs/structures.

The book is clear about one thing- social evil is a created thing & it can be dismantled.

[Noah]

Although it certainly reads cohesively, I feel like this book does three things:
1. It's a fascinating historical analysis of various texts/material artifacts. Worth reading just for this.
2. It does the work of theologizing from a womanist perspective, paying particular attention to cultures of empire and evil. Worth reading just for this.
3. Published in 2006, it contextualizes/historicizes our current historical/political moment, describing events and phenomena that both feel so far away and also remain very active and relevant. Worth reading just for this.

[C Dumaoal]

There is A LOT going on here. I am not an ethicist so this was not rlly my thing. HOWEVER chapter 7 is pretty much just an extended poem and I wept my way through it. So that made up for it.

[Rory]

If the evil perpetrated is a product of human hands, its production can be traced backward in history to its genesis. By acts of counter-memory, evil can be named, unraveled and a new way of living can be possible. This book is important.

[Honey Elizabeth]

i have read this book five times through & continuously reference it in both academic & personal writing. townes’ description of the fantastic hegemonic imagination changed the way that i view much of the things we have been told about the way the world works. she’s brilliant.

[Jessie]

Beautiful, intelligent, and inspiring.

[Elizabeth Pyjov]

One of the best and most important books I've ever read

[Ethan Shearer]

A startling piece of public theology.

[Christian Briones]

Dense than a mf but what I could understand was 🔥

[Michael Fuhrman]

Let not the grandeur imagination of capital society allow hope to die!

[Liddy Barlow]

The last of the books for my ethics class (yay!), this one addresses contemporary social issues such as racism and welfare reform from a womanist (African American feminist) perspective. Townes uses stereotypes of black women, such as Aunt Jemima and Topsy, to illuminate each issue. Her style varies dramatically -- in places, it is thick with academese; in others, she writes in slam poetry! And she peppers it with funny footnotes, including one that gives instructions on dancing the electric slide.

[Steve]

Townes' major work, while fairly thin, is one of the most penetrating and leaned ethics texts I've come across. A concrete work drawing deeply from numerous disciplines, bringing many perspectives into dialog to scrutinize persisting cultural perversions that dehumanize and hamper justice. Perhaps the preeminent Womanist today, here she offers a shrewd exploration and analysis of the interior life of evil, its cultural fashioning and function here in US society and globally.

[skye]

A great radical work. I learned a lot from this book. Her prose it at times super-academic and hard to follow, but at other times very clear and her justified anger comes through like a hard hit to the "fantastic hegemonic imagination" and a culture that still has too much racism, classism, materialism.

[elissa]

townes gets a bit allegorical with her writing, which is fine and i think that's what she's know/liked for: pretty, non-fiction writing. her ideas are good but unclear at times, muddled by narrative.

[Sally]

http://www.the-exponent.com/an-interv...

"Ethics and theology are intimate dance partners — theology helps me think through how I experience God; ethics helps me think through how I must respond to this experience and also act on it."