Black Religion in the Madhouse
Race and Psychiatry in Slavery's Wake
Seiten
2025
New York University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4798-2978-1 (ISBN)
New York University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4798-2978-1 (ISBN)
- Noch nicht erschienen (ca. April 2025)
- Versandkostenfrei
- Auch auf Rechnung
- Artikel merken
Uncovers how white psychiatrists pathologized African American religions
In the decades after the end of slavery, African Americans were committed to southern state mental hospitals at higher rates as white psychiatrists listed “religious excitement” among the most frequent causes of insanity for Black patients. At the same time, American popular culture and political discourse framed African American modes of spiritual power as fetishism and superstition, cast embodied worship as excessive or fanatical, and labeled new religious movements “cults,” unworthy of respect.
As Judith Weisenfeld argues in Black Religion in the Madhouse, psychiatrists’ notions of race and religion became inextricably intertwined in the decades after the end of slavery and into the twentieth century, and had profound impacts on the diagnosis, care, and treatment of Black patients. This book charts how racialized medical understandings of mental normalcy pathologized a range of Black religious beliefs, spiritual sensibilities, practices, and social organizations and framed them as manifestations of innate racial traits. Importantly, these characterizations were marshaled to help to limit the possibilities for Black self-determination, with white psychiatrists’ theories about African American religion and mental health being used to promote claims of Black people’s unfitness for freedom.
Drawing on extensive archival research, Black Religion in the Madhouse is the first book to expose how racist views of Black religion in slavery’s wake shaped the rise of psychiatry as an established and powerful profession.
In the decades after the end of slavery, African Americans were committed to southern state mental hospitals at higher rates as white psychiatrists listed “religious excitement” among the most frequent causes of insanity for Black patients. At the same time, American popular culture and political discourse framed African American modes of spiritual power as fetishism and superstition, cast embodied worship as excessive or fanatical, and labeled new religious movements “cults,” unworthy of respect.
As Judith Weisenfeld argues in Black Religion in the Madhouse, psychiatrists’ notions of race and religion became inextricably intertwined in the decades after the end of slavery and into the twentieth century, and had profound impacts on the diagnosis, care, and treatment of Black patients. This book charts how racialized medical understandings of mental normalcy pathologized a range of Black religious beliefs, spiritual sensibilities, practices, and social organizations and framed them as manifestations of innate racial traits. Importantly, these characterizations were marshaled to help to limit the possibilities for Black self-determination, with white psychiatrists’ theories about African American religion and mental health being used to promote claims of Black people’s unfitness for freedom.
Drawing on extensive archival research, Black Religion in the Madhouse is the first book to expose how racist views of Black religion in slavery’s wake shaped the rise of psychiatry as an established and powerful profession.
Judith Weisenfeld is Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor in the Department of Religion at Princeton University and author, most recently, of New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 29.4.2025 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 17 b/w images |
| Verlagsort | New York |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte |
| Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-4798-2978-1 / 1479829781 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-4798-2978-1 / 9781479829781 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
Herkunft, Blüte, Weg nach Osten
Buch | Hardcover (2024)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 55,90
warum die Religionen erst im Mittelalter entstanden sind
Buch | Hardcover (2024)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 53,20
