Black Theology-Essays on Gender Perspectives (HC) (2017)

What do African American men have to do with gender? In this collection of riveting and wide-ranging essays, Dwight N. Hopkins draws on over thirty-five years of wrestling with these questions. Too often gender is seen as a ""woman's only"" discussion. But in reality, men have a gender too. Some say it is biological; others claim it has to do with socialization. Hopkins's career has focused on defining what a black American man is, and how he builds bridges of support and engagement with women. Hopkins's research as a theologian, and his experiences, substantiate that the importance of religious viewpoints, principled values, and future hope remain key to any successful creation of a new African American male and new healthy male-female interactions. ""Dwight Hopkins' Black Theology: Essays on Gender Perspective is restorative gender justice at-work! . . . Reinterpreting the headline events that reveal the psychosocial vulnerability of Black men, he walks the reader through the traumas with the hope of restoring the dignity of Black manhood. While seeking to recover the degraded Black male body, Hopkins simultaneously advocates gender equality through redefining Black male heteronormativity as a liberating presence that does not diminish other gender identities."" --Lee H. Butler, Jr., Distinguished Service Professor of Theology and Psychology, Founder, Center for the Study of Black Faith and Life, Chicago Theological Seminary Dwight N. Hopkins is Professor of Theology at the University of Chicago. He is the founder of the International Association of Black Religions and Spiritualities, a network of members from India, Japan, Australia, Fiji, Hawaii and the United States, Jamaica, Brazil, England, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Ghana. His many books include Teaching Global Theologies (coeditor, 2015), The Cambridge Companion to Black Theology (coeditor, 2012), and Walk Together Children (coeditor, Cascade Books, 2010).