Copyright Jessica Davenport 2019 ABSTRACT Appositional Black Aesthetics: Theorizing Black Religion in the Visual Art of Carrie Mae Weems] by Jessica Davenport Scholars of religion have long looked to forms of cultural production as source material from which to proffer claims concerning the nature and meaning of black religion. And yet, while robust attention has been given to mining literary and musical forms for religious significance, few scholars in the field of black religion have rigorously engaged visual and aesthetic methods and theories. This project contributes to efforts to fill this void by examining visual artist Carrie Mae Weems’s conceptual photography as a case study. In particular, I posit that Weems’s images are reflective of what I conceive as an appositional black aesthetic. Drawn from Fred Moten’s notion of appositionality, this aesthetic refers to art and images that depict black life with complexity and a type of multidimensional openness that extends beyond categorical frames of “positive” and “negative” images. This aesthetic is also an approach to analyzing images that emphasizes expansive explorations into the complicated nuances, creative improvisations and alternative social logics that attend black life. In identifying and delineating appositional black aesthetics in works from Weems’s oeuvre, I further contend that her images provide a visual rendering of what Anthony Pinn argues is at the core of black religion: a fundamental impulse or yearning for more life meaning that involves a push for expansive ways of being and fuller life options. But whereas Pinn frames the black religious endeavor as a “quest for complex subjectivity,” Weems’s renderings demonstrate ways of being and engaging with the world that exceed the fraught racialized classificatory paradigm of subjectivity. Rather than a quest for inclusion within subjectivity’s categorical schema, this project reframes the black religion as a generative enactment of the flesh. Informed by the work of Moten as well as Hortense Spillers and Nicole Fleetwood, this theoretical conceptualization situates black religion as the locus point of possibility for complex, open, ever-shifting ways of being that always already exceed the regulating social logics of dominant society and its prescribed ontologies. Acknowledgments To Dr. Melva Sampson and Dr. Maisha Handy who, on the eve of my departure to Houston to begin the doctoral program at Rice University, convened a gathering of black women scholars and educators in a living room in Atlanta to send me on my way, who ensured that I was equipped with words of wisdom and affirmation that would sustain me throughout this journey, To the Forum for Theological Exploration (formerly The Fund for Theological Education), specifically Dr. Sharon Watson Fluker and Matthew Williams, for their steadfast commitment to nurturing young scholars of color and for providing me with monetary resources and a built-in network of mentors and colleagues in the early and most formative years of my doctoral process, To the memory of Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, a monumental figure in black religious and Womanist scholarship, a north star to black women religious scholars across the nation and whose visit to Rice during my second-year in the program positively changed the trajectory and stakes of my research interests, To the members of my dissertation committee, who took my ideas and this project seriously and whose generative suggestions and feedback challenged me to do the same: Dr. Anthony B. Pinn, my advisor and, without question, my most relentless interlocutor, who taught me “how to read a book,” who did the heavy-lifting of making the otherwise treacherous waters of graduate student life a bit more navigable, and who created space for my colleagues and I to engage in the study of black religion with rigor and expansive inquiry; Dr. Marcia Brennan, who graciously spent a summer with me as I read through v seminal texts in art history, aesthetics and religion and whose profound and meticulous engagement with the field of the visual is matched by a sheer joy and exuberance for intellectual study that I found contagious; Dr. Nicole Waligora-Davis, who models black study, whose care, precision and forthrightness in the work of academic scholarship I can only hope to emulate, who opened up an entire world of thought and ideas to me when she included black critical theory on the syllabus for her African American Literature course, To my colleagues in the African Religions and African American Religion concentrations at Rice who have gone on to do wonderful work in the study of religion, but before doing so, provided me with rich intellectual community: Dr. Margarita Simon Guillory, Dr. Enoch Olujide Gbadegesin, Dr. Aundrea Matthews, Dr. Jonathan Chism, Dr. Darrius Hills, Dr. Christopher Driscoll, Dr. Nathanael Homewood, Dr. David Kline and, most especially, Dr. Terri Laws, who was a consistent source of laughter, affirmation, and a safe-house for honest conversation throughout the process, Dr. Rachel Schneider, my friend and co-conspirator who walked with me on the tight-rope of maintaining a commitment to both community engagement and academic study, as well as Dr. Jason Jeffries and Dr. Biko Mandela Gray, who, in the final stages of this project, quite literally saw me through to the finish, To my colleagues in the African American Religion concentration with whom I matriculated more closely in my final years through the program, who gave their time and careful attention to reading this work and to providing insightful feedback: Shardé Chapman, Mark DeYoung, De’Anna Daniels, and, most especially, to Justine Bakker, whose nimble, encyclopedic mind, pure love for the work, and unwavering belief in the vi possibilities for this project were motivating forces in helping me to bring it to completion; and to Cleve Tinsley, who is—in every sense of the phrase—my brother for life, To Maya Reine, Assistant Director for the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning at Rice, who was an encouraging presence on campus and whose enthusiastic support of my efforts to build relationships with the larger Houston community made many things happen, To my Houston friends who became my family, who taught me so much about what it means to be in community and to love a city and its people, who allowed me to work with them in creating community spaces where the black creative imagination could flourish, who held me together at particular moments during the writing process when I felt myself coming undone: Brandi Holmes, Secunda Joseph, Lanecia Rouse Tinsley, Andrea Sawyer-Gray, Chap Edmonson, and Carie Cauley, To Selima Harleston-Lust and Dr. Meredith Coleman-Tobias, who have given me the gift of life-long friendship, who heard me when I said I wanted to see this project through and, in response, came up with intentional ways to hold me accountable, who never held my perpetual grouchiness against me, and who were my biggest cheerleaders when I reached even the most miniscule of milestones, To Carrie Mae Weems, who put an incredible body of artwork into the world, a work that I am continually humbled and challenged by as well as privileged to think with and write about, vii And, finally, to my parents, Herman and Bobette Davenport: to Daddy, who is to- date my fiercest intellectual contender, who never let me get away with lazy reasoning, but who always remained at the kitchen table for debate; to Mama, whose eye for beauty, attention to detail, and penchant for flair and style was my first entrée into aesthetics, who was always just a phone call away, and who always, always believed, With boundless gratitude, thank you. Contents Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... iv Contents ..................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Introduction........................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Rationale for Study ............................................................................................... 7 1.3. Chapter Overview ............................................................................................... 10 Appositional Black Aesthetics ..................................................................................... 14 2.1. Rethinking Black Images: Black Religion through Appositional Black Aesthetics .................................................................................................................................. 15 2.2. Photography as a Tool of Racial Classification and Racist Ideology .................... 29 2.3. Black Photographs in Opposition ........................................................................ 46 2.4. Re-Situating Black Religion through Appositional Black Aesthetics ................... 71 2.5. Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 90 Black Religion as Enactments of the Flesh ................................................................. 92 3.1. Introduction......................................................................................................... 92 3.2. Kitchen Table Series: An Appositional Black Aesthetic Rendering of Black