Ebook: Afro-Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion

Afro-Eccentricity explores three overlapping stories of Black Religion: the Soul, Black Church, and Ancestor Narratives. Hart contends that these narratives dominate most accounts of Black Religion that, collectively, he calls the “Standard Narrative of Black Religion.” Against the backdrop of this account, where Afro-Eccentricity is a pun and critical trope, Hart interprets Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow as a battlefield between Afrocentric and Afro-Eccentric versions of the Ancestor Narrative. Then he explores four theorists of Black Religion—Charles H. Long, William R. Jones, Cornel West, and Theophus Smith—whose works push against the limitations of the Standard Narrative.