Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil (Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice)
"Sure to (and should) become a standard for reading in theology and ethics and, hopefully, pastoral care. Townes, recent president of the American Academy of Religion and current Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale Divinity School, engages the problem of evil from a fresh and challenging angle - a womanist perspective engaging evil's material and cultural dimensions...One of the most important books on evil and evil's everyday consequences to date"--Jacob J. Erickson,Word & World "Emilie Townes is the towering womanist ethicist of our time. In this ice age of indifference and evasion, her powerful voice and viewpoint summon us. And we thank her for her vision and courage!"—Cornel West, Princeton University “In this book Emilie Townes undertakes an extraordinary inquiry into the cultural production of evil that has aimed at defining African American women as morally depraved. More specifically, she defines cultural evil as a set of romanticized images and stereotypes that originate in the imagination of whites and thereafter transformed into cultural tools of disrespect and degradation. This is a uniquely rigorous study of the internal structure of systemic evil and its pathological products namely,mammy, Aunt Jemima, Jezebel,  Sapphire, Tragic Mulatta, black matriarch, welfare queen, Topsyand others. The multi-dimensional character of cultural evil necessitates a variety of descriptive voices which the author expresses by writing as ethicist, historian, narrator, and poet.  Most important, Townes  also provides her readers with a cultural antidote for this excellent diagnosis of an enduring cultural disease.”—Peter J. Paris, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor, Christian Social Ethics, Princeton Theological Seminary “Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evilbrings together powerful contributions that rested separately in different venues.  Studies ofstructuralstudies of evil are available but theirinteriorworlds are typically absent.  Those interior worlds productive of evil belong toculturaltreatments that are often missing in the considerable body of sound theological accounts.  The voices of those whoendurestructural and cultural evil, vividly captured here in history and memory, are neglected as major sources of salient knowledge in all too many accounts.  But in these pages, all these weave the work together.  It is hard to exaggerate the significance of this book, and easy to be grateful for it!”—Larry L. Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary "The work of a towering public intellectual! This book is a major achievement in the field of womanist ethics that draws into its orbit popular culture and Foucault, personal memory and public policy. Emilie Townes confirms her position as one of the nation's thought leaders and change agents.”—Robert M. Franklin, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, and Former President, Interdenominational Theological Center