Josef Sorett, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics

Josef Sorett, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 312 ISBN: 9780199844937 (hardcover) Laura Visser-Maessen The “worship of spirit,” renowned black author Amiri Baraka once wrote, “is always at the root in Black art…or at least the summoning of or by such force” (181). That this remained true even as the black communities in the US that produced such art were tied to the sweeping powers of both secularization and Americanization is e...