Ras Michael Brown is Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

'Brown brings a distinct expertise to scholarship on the religious heritages of African-descended peoples in North America and other regions of the Americas. His contributions to what we now know about the African religious cultures of enslaved Africans and African Americans on the US mainland are unparalleled. Brown breaks with stubborn research practices and assumptive standpoints in African-American religious history to expand our knowledge about African-American religion before the mid-eighteenth century and to rethink some of the established frameworks for interpreting African-American religion since the mid-eighteenth century.' Dianne M. Stewart Diakité, Emory University

• 1. Place, culture, and power; 2. Land of the living; 3. African spirits of the land and water; 4. African landscapes of the Lowcountry; 5. Spiritual guardians in the wilderness; 6. Mermaid histories and power.

Ras Michael Brown is Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

'Brown brings a distinct expertise to scholarship on the religious heritages of African-descended peoples in North America and other regions of the Americas. His contributions to what we now know about the African religious cultures of enslaved Africans and African Americans on the US mainland are unparalleled. Brown breaks with stubborn research practices and assumptive standpoints in African-American religious history to expand our knowledge about African-American religion before the mid-eighteenth century and to rethink some of the established frameworks for interpreting African-American religion since the mid-eighteenth century.' Dianne M. Stewart Diakité, Emory University

• 1. Place, culture, and power; 2. Land of the living; 3. African spirits of the land and water; 4. African landscapes of the Lowcountry; 5. Spiritual guardians in the wilderness; 6. Mermaid histories and power.