Religion and Hip Hop

Monica R. Miller is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanistic Approaches to the Social Sciences at Lewis & Clark College, Department of Religious Studies. She is co-chair of a new American Academy of Religion (AAR) group entitled 'Critical Approaches to the Study of Hip Hop and Religion' and Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS), Washington, DC.

"Miller's well researched and thoughtfully written book is a vital contribution to scholarship, one that holds great promise for helping readers better understand both the nature and meaning of religion and the deep significance of hip hop. Anyone interested in the intersection(s) of religion and hip hop should read this book. I highly recommend it." – Anthony B. Pinn, Rice University, USA"Milller's new volume is a sweeping, provocative look at the complex relationship between hip hop and religion. Drawing on her rich and wide-ranging understanding of the art form, Miller asks very basic and profound questions about religion itself. Looking past popular and academic moralizing alike, Miller interrogates religion as an emergent and unpredictable phenomena, asking what it means-and can mean-for hip hop artists and audiences today. In so doing, Miller generously and expansively clears the ground for all future work on this necessary and vital topic." – Greg Dimitriadis, University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA"Monica Miller has produced a lucid and unpredictable book that easily separates itself from the pack. This is destined to be a classic in critical hip-hop studies and a definitive contribution to ongoing debates about the very contours of African American religious and political life in the 21st century." – John L. Jackson, Jr., University of Pennsylvania, USA"Miller’s ambitious enterprise sets out to rethink difference in black popular culture. Concise, engaging and original, this book should be read by students and teachers engaged in the social scientific study of contemporary religion." – Abby Day, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK"Religion and Hip Hop makes significant contributions to scholarship on religion and Hip Hop as well as to theory and method in the study of African American religion generally. Miller’s shifts in focus, from a priori and sui generis definitions of religion to a social constructionist perspective, and from rap lyrics and institutional Christianity to material culture and lived religion, should prove a watershed moment in the field of religion and Hip Hop." - Dusty Hoesley, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, in Religion

• Introduction: (Re)Finding Religion 1. Scapegoats, Boundaries, and Blame: The Civic Face of Hip-Hop Culture 2. Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover 3. And the Word Became Flesh: Hip-Hop Culture and the (In)coherence of Religion 4. Inside-Out: Complex Subjectivity and Postmodern Thought 5. Youth Religiosity in America: The Empirical Landscape 6. Faith in the Flesh Conclusion: When the Religious Ain’t So Religious, After All Notes Bibliography Index