Religion in Hip Hop Mapping the New Terrain in the US

Now a global and transnational phenomenon, hip hop culture continues to affect and be affected by the institutional, cultural, religious, social, economic and political landscape of American society and beyond. Over the past two decades, numerous disciplines have taken up hip hop culture for its intellectual weight and contributions to the cultural life and self-understanding of the United States. More recently, the academic study of religion has given hip hop culture closer and more critical attention, yet this conversation is often limited to discussions of hip hop and traditional understandings of religion and a methodological hyper-focus on lyrical and textual analyses.

Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the Terrain provides an important step in advancing and mapping this new field of Religion and Hip Hop Studies. The volume features 14 original contributions representative of this new terrain within three sections representing major thematic issues over the past two decades. The Preface is written by one of the most prolific and founding scholars of this area of study, Michael Eric Dyson, and the inclusion of and collaboration with Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman fosters a perspective internal to Hip Hop and encourages conversation between artists and academics.

Monica R. Miller is Assistant Professor of Religion & Africana Studies, Director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Lehigh University, USA.

Anthony B. Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities, Professor of Religious Studies, and Director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL) at Rice University, USA.

Bernard "Bun B" Freeman is an American rapper, songwriter and CERCL Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Rice University, USA.

Preface: Turning Nothing Into Something is God Work': Holiness and Hurt in the Hood, Michael Eric Dyson, University Professor of Sociology (University of Georgetown, USA)
Introduction: Context and Other Considerations, Anthony B. Pinn, Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies, Director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL) (Rice University, USA) & Monica R. Miller, Assistant Professor of Religion & Africana Studies, Director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Lehigh University, USA)
Part 1: Hip Hop on Religion as/for the Embodied Self
1. Searching for Self: Religion and the Creative Quest for Self in the Art of Erykah Badu, Margarita Simon-Guillory, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies (University of Rochester, USA)
2. Methods for the Prophetic: Tupac Shakur, Lauryn Hill, and the Case for Ethnolifehistory, Daniel White-Hodge, Assistant Professor of Youth Ministry, Director of Centre for Youth Ministry Studies (North Park University, USA)
3. Existentialist Transvaluation and Hip-Hop’s Syncretic Religiosity, Julius D. Bailey, Associate Professor of Philosophy (Wittenberg University, USA)
4. God Complex, Complex gods, or God's Complex? Jay Z, Poor Black Youth, and Making 'The Struggle' Divine, Michael Eric Dyson, University Professor, Sociology (Georgetown University, USA)
Part 2: Hip Hop on Religion and the 'Other'
5. A PARTICULAR PAC: Ontological Ruptures and the Posthumous Presence of Tupac Shakur, James Braxton Peterson, Associate Professor of English, Director of Africana Studies (Lehigh University, USA)
6. *iRoamThruZones* Follow Me! #NOWTHATSRELIGIONANDHIPHOP: Mapping the Terrain of Religion and Hip Hop in Cyberspace, Elonda Clay, Archivist and Digital Librarian (Philander Smith College, USA) & Ph.D. Student (Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, USA)
7. Houston…On the Borderline of Hard Times: Religion and the Embodiment of Space and Places, Maco L. Faniel, Ph.D. Student & author of Hip Hop in Houston: The Origin and the Legacy (Houston, Texas, USA)
8. Imperial Whiteness Meets Hip-Hop Blackness: A Spiritual Phenomenology of the Hegemonic Body in 21st Century USA, James W. Perkinson, Professor of Ethics and Systematic Theology (Ecumenical Theological Seminary, USA)
9. "Bun B on Religion and Hip Hop," Bernard “Bun B” Freeman, American rapper, songwriter and CERCL Distinguished Visiting Lecturer (Rice University, USA)
Part 3: Approaches to Religion in Hip Hop on the Margins
10. Hip Hop and Humanism: Thinking Against New (and Old) Fundamentalisms, Greg Dimitriadis, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA,)
11. Conspiracy is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Hip-Hop’s Suspicious Spirituality, John L. Jackson, Jr., Richard Perry University Professor of Communications and Anthropology, Dean of Social Policy & Practice (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
12. Constructing Constellations: Frankfurt School, Lupe Fiasco, and the Promise of Weak Redemption, Joseph Winters, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies (UNC Charlotte, USA)
13. Zombies in the ‘Hood: Rap Music, Camusian Absurdity, and the Structuring of Death, Anthony B. Pinn, Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies (Rice University, USA)
14. Real Recognize Real: Aporetic Flows and the Presence of New Black Godz in Hip Hop, Monica R. Miller, Assistant Professor of Religion & Africana Studies, Director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Lehigh University, USA)
Afterword: An Insider Perspective, Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman, American rapper, songwriter and Distinguished Visiting Lecturer (Rice University, USA)
Concluding Thoughts: The Future of the Study of Religion in/and Hip Hop, Monica R. Miller, Assistant Professor of Religion & Africana Studies, Director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Lehigh University, USA) & Anthony B. Pinn, Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies, Director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL) (Rice University, USA)