Significations : Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion

Significations is a sustained criticism of several major approaches (phenomenological, historical, theological) and pre-suppositions (“shadows of the discipline”) which make up some of the work of religious studies in the United States. Within this critical spirit, Long attempts (1) a reevaluation of some of the basic issues forming the study of religion in America; (2) an outline of a hermeneutics of conquest and colonialism generated during the formation of the social and symbolic order called the “New World;” and (3) a critique of the categories of civil religion, innocence, and theology from the perspective of the black experience and the experience of colonized peoples.

Charles H. Long speaks to the general meaning of religion in history and culture, and specifically about African religion in the Atlantic world, from a unique perspective. He participated in establishing the first curriculum for the study of religion at the University of Chicago. Through his teaching at the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina, Duke University and Syracuse University, and a rich and distinguished list of publications, he has influenced three generations of Historians of Religion and African-American Studies.