Bloomsbury The Collected Writings of Charles H. Long: Ellipsis

Charles H. Long is one of the most influential and pioneering scholars in the study of religion from the past 50 years, and this volume brings together in one place his oeuvre of all 36 articles and two interviews. Edited by Long himself, the volume is divided into four thematic parts: America and the Study of Religion; Theory and Method in the Study of Religion; African American Religion in the United States; Kindling, Embers and Sparks. Long's foreword and introduction provide much-awaited insight into his reflections on his work and fills in and expands on topics and questions that remained unanswered in his classic and influential text, Significations: Signs, Symbols and Images in the Interpretation of Images (1986). In particular, the new introductory essay explores the significance of "ellipses", that which is omitted, the projected spaces of the Other in the study of religion. Considered the preeminent founder and advocate of the study of Black Religion, Long was exploring religion and colonialism and the importance of Afro-American religion as early as the 1960s and early 1970s, and this collection of his thinking - which moves across the formations of religious studies, African diasporic studies, and social and cultural theory - is a must-have addition for any institutional or personal library.