Black religion in the madhouse : race and psychiatry in slavery's wake / Judith Weisenfeld.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weisenfeld, Judith, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Religion--History.

African Americans.

Black people--Race identity.

Black people.

Psychology and religion--United States.

Psychology and religion.

Racism--United States.

Racism.

African Americans--Religion.

Physical Description:

x, 301 pages : illustrations, map, portraits, chart ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Race and psychiatry in slavery's wake

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"In the decades after the end of slavery, African Americans were committed to southern state mental hospitals at higher rates as white psychiatrists listed 'religious excitement' among the most frequent causes of insanity for Black patients. At the same time, American popular culture and political discourse framed African American modes of spiritual power as fetishism and superstition, cast embodied worship as excessive or fanatical, and labeled new religious movements 'cults,' unworthy of respect. As Judith Weisenfeld argues in Black Religion in the Madhouse, psychiatrists' notions of race and religion became inextricably intertwined in the decades after the end of slavery and into the twentieth century, and had profound impacts on the diagnosis, care, and treatment of Black patients. This book charts how racialized medical understandings of mental normalcy pathologized a range of Black religious beliefs, spiritual sensibilities, practices, and social organizations and framed them as manifestations of innate racial traits. Importantly, these characterizations were marshaled to help to limit the possibilities for Black self-determination, with white psychiatrists' theories about African American religion and mental health being used to promote claims of Black people's unfitness for freedom. Drawing on extensive archival research, Black Religion in the Madhouse is the first book to expose how racist views of Black religion in slavery's wake shaped the rise of psychiatry as an established and powerful profession"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The making of Black religious fanaticism

Black freedom and the racialization of "religious excitement"

Pathologizing Black supernaturalism

Containing Black religious emotions

The social environment and the "Negro cult"

Faith in psychiatry.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-285) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Weisenfeld, Judith. Black religion in the madhouse

ISBN:

9781479829781

1479829781

OCLC:

1457303445