Abstract

By looking at recent examples in the news, examples from the academic study of religion, and personal examples, the introduction makes the case that religion and race are not going away in the contemporary world. They are intractable because they are part of the conceptual architecture of modernity. We must extend extant genealogies of religion and race past the Enlightenment. It is the generation following the Enlightenment, and in particular a group of post-Kantian German thinkers, who gave final shape to the modern world. It is necessary to look at these thinkers to gain a full understanding of how religion and race operate, and their intractability, in the present world.