Synopses & Reviews
Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity is the first collection devoted to demonstrating the role that religion and myth have played in the creation of the categories of “race” and “ethnicity.”
When scholars approach religion and race, they tend to focus on such issues as how African Americans have expressed Christianity, or how Japanese or Mexicans have lived “religiously.” This volume, meant specifically for those new to the field, brings together an ensemble of prominent scholars and illuminates instead the role religious myths have played in shaping those very social boundaries that we call “races” and “ethnicities.” It asks, what part did Christianity play in creating “Blackness”? To what extent was Japanese or Mexican identity itself the product of religious life?
The text, comprised of all original material, introduces readers to the social construction of race and ethnicity and the ways in which these concepts are shaped by religious narratives. It offers examples from both the U.S. and around the world, exploring these themes in the context of places as diverse as Bosnia, India, Japan, Mexico, Zimbabwe, and the Middle East. The volume helps make the case that any account of the social construction of race and ethnicity will be incomplete if it fails to consider the influence of religious traditions and myths.
Contributors include: Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Joel Martin, Jacob Neusner, Roberto S. Goizueta, Laurie Patton, and Michael A. Sells.
Review
“This impressive book, which is based on extensive archival research, shows how the transformation of racial categories at the turn of the 20th century was a multidirectional process that often generated new meanings. Murphy reveals how multiple imperial histories shaped changing ideas about race and how readers and writers who engaged the trope of the white mans burden exposed contradictory ideas about whiteness as a domestic and transnational racial construct. Shadowing the White Mans Burden is part of an exciting new body of work on race in transnational contexts. It is one of the best accounts we have of the significance of literature in transformations of and contests over race in this period.”
-Shelley Streeby,author of American Sensations: Class, Empire, and the Production of Popular Culture
Review
"This beautifully argued and engaging literary history addresses a fairly simple question: How did the distinctive multiracial nature of the United States transform that country's sense of itself as an empire? The result is a fascinating and rewarding book worth reading closely and carefully." -Matthew Pratt Guterl,The Journal of American History
Review
"Gretchen Murphy's new book is a compelling work that synthesizes critical race theory and U.S. empire studies to produce an original analysis of whiteness in national and international contexts . . . Shadowing the White Man's Burden is a valuable book that makes an important contribution to the growing body of work on U.S. imperialism. Scholars interested in the topic would do well to attend to this remarkable achievement." -Harilaos Stecopoulos,American Historical Review
Review
“Addresses the social construction of race in a most useful way. Far too many American books on “race” treat race and racism as a simplistic bi-lateral Black versus White problem. This volume brings together scholars who address the concern in a much broader context from racism experienced by Native Americans and other Peoples of Color in North America to the dynamics of racialization in Africa, Japan, or Bosnia-Herzegovina. The authors give special attention to the religious factor in racialization processes, with attention, for instance, to Islam and Hindu contexts. This is an extremely insightful collection that will considerably broaden the discussion about race and ethnicity; it will prove useful in the classroom for years to come.”
-George E. “Tink” Tinker (Osage),Iliff School of Theology
Review
“This book intends to speak to a general audience, and . . . it succeeds very well.”
-Multicultural Review,
Review
“The essays in this volume make a significant contribution to the scholarship on the interrelationships among religion and race and ethnicity.”
-Choice,
Review
"Murphy's analysis has much to offer to scholars in the humanities...Shadowing the White Man's Burden is an exciting contribution to transnational analysis, African American Studies, and a welcome gift to scholars in various fields interested in deconstructing concepts of race and nation in the modern era."-Journal of African American History,
Synopsis
During the height of 19th century imperialism, Rudyard Kipling published his famous poem “The White Mans Burden.” While some of his American readers argued that the poem served as justification for imperialist practices, others saw Kiplings satirical talents at work and read it as condemnation. Gretchen Murphy explores this tension embedded in the notion of the white mans burden to create a new historical frame for understanding race and literature in America.
Shadowing the White Mans Burden maintains that literature symptomized and channeled anxiety about the racial components of the U.S. world mission, while also providing a potentially powerful medium for multiethnic authors interested in redrawing global color lines. Through a range of archival materials from literary reviews to diplomatic records to ethnological treatises, Murphy identifies a common theme in the writings of African-, Asian- and Native-American authors who exploited anxiety about race and national identity through narratives about a multiracial U.S. empire. Shadowing the White Mans Burden situates American literature in the context of broader race relations, and provides a compelling analysis of the way in which literature came to define and shape racial attitudes for the next century.
About the Author
Gretchen Murphy is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas-Austin. She is the author of Hemispheric Imaginings: The Monroe Doctrine and Narratives of U.S. Empire.