Abstract

Through an engagement with Sylvia Wynter, this article explores how black feminist critiques of the human can inform critical genealogies of religion. Specifically, the article develops a theoretical framework to interrogate how the modern construction of religion and the secular also produces racial identities and hierarchies. To draw attention to the global dimensions of this project, the article foregrounds the seminal work of Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm in his book, The Invention of Religion in Japan. The article argues that studies like Josephson-Storm's show how religion helps transform existing forms of social organization within a bio-evolutionary conception of the nation, and is used by the state to differentiate between who can be considered fully human and who cannot. In this process “superstition” or “irrationality” is rewritten as a biological threat to the health and well-being of “the people,” and political domination is represented as a struggle to purify the nation.