The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali (Class 200: New Studies in Religion)

<div>"Citizenship is salvation," preached Noble Drew Ali, leader of the Moorish Science Temple of America in the early twentieth century. Ali's message was an aspirational call for black Americans to undertake a struggle for recognition from the state, one that would both ensure protection for all Americans through rights guaranteed by the law and correct the unjust implementation of law that prevailed in the racially segregated United States. Ali and his followers took on this mission of citizenship as a religious calling, working to carve out a place for themselves in American democracy and to bring about a society that lived up to what they considered the sacred purpose of the law. In The Aliites, Spencer Dew traces the history and impact of Ali's radical fusion of law and faith. Dew uncovers the influence of Ali's teachings, including the many movements they inspired. As Dew shows, Ali's teachings demonstrate an implicit yet critical component of the American approach to law: that it should express our highest ideals for society, even if it is rarely perfect in practice. Examining this robustly creative yet largely overlooked lineage of African American religious thought, Dew provides a window onto religion, race, citizenship, and law in America.</div>

History

Dew, Spencer

Americas

University of Chicago Press

“Citizenship is salvation,” preached Noble Drew Ali, leader of the Moorish Science Temple of America in the early twentieth century. Ali’s message was an aspirational call for black Americans to undertake a struggle for recognition from the state, one that would both ensure protection for all Americans through rights guaranteed by the law and correct the unjust implementation of law that prevailed in the racially segregated United States. Ali and his followers took on this mission of citizenship as a religious calling, working to carve out a place for themselves in American democracy and to bring about a society that lived up to what they considered the sacred purpose of the law. In The Aliites, Spencer Dew traces the history and impact of Ali’s radical fusion of law and faith. Dew uncovers the influence of Ali’s teachings, including the many movements they inspired. As Dew shows, Ali’s teachings demonstrate an implicit yet critical component of the American approach to law: that it should express our highest ideals for society, even if it is rarely perfect in practice. Examining this robustly creative yet largely overlooked lineage of African American religious thought, Dew provides a window onto religion, race, citizenship, and law in America.

From literary New South yarn to end-of-days dirge, buoyant realism and slapstick satire, the tapestry of style and genre in the 14 collected stories in "Triumph of the Ape" screams with themes of American folly. Written over the first decade of the 21st century, the stories reach back into the past of the author's native South Carolina -- and forward into a grim future where love nonetheless remains humanity's best hope. Todd Dills is also the author of a novel, "Sons of the Rapture" (Featherproof Books 2006), and editor of two collections -- "All Hands On" (2004 and 2011) -- published in conjunction with the literary broadsheet he founded in Chicago in the year 2000, THE2NDHAND. Today, he lives and writes in Nashville, Tenn. Praise for "Triumph of the Ape": "'Triumph' reads, as a whole, like a book might if written by a man who finally, reaching the beach, realizes the bits of wreckage half buried in the sand are everything that mattered, the places of dreams and opportunity. The damn dirty apes win...." --from the Afterword by Spencer Dew, author of "Songs of Insurgency," "Mont Saint Michel and Chartres" "A tremendous collection! 'Triumph of the Ape' outlines the highs and lows of comically self-conscious young men bumming around the free, modern world, armed only with mind, heart and humor. These stories are bursting with warmth and smart lovin’. Reading Todd Dills makes life -– all of it –- feel a little bit kinder." --Patrick Somerville, author of 'This Bright River', 'The Cradle' "'Triumph' is dauntless, daring in its variety of tones and styles, a kind of taunt to the new century and all its ongoing crises. There’s the spirited, Southern slant of the Barry-Hannah-esque 'Color of Magic' and 'Confederate Yankee...,' and elsewhere, the author’s ongoing interest in forms, especially the itinerary, shifts toward the collection’s centerpiece, an imagining of the development of a underground literary movement around a 'Stupidist Manifesto.' Realism, noir, short short -– from lascivious to hilarious –- the range of styles culminates with one-part music essay, one-part end-of-days fabulism, in the closing sound track to the coming Rapture. Again and again, there’s invention, Dills’ inexhaustible gift for language and tireless imagination." --Joe Meno, author of "Office Girl," "The Great Perhaps," "Hairstyles of the Damned" "Every story in 'Triumph' reveals characters 'united in stupidity, not necessarily dumb or incapable of love but senseless with self-love,' typical of Dills’ weirdly entertaining Faulkner-in-the-city touches. Perhaps no other working writer has so benefited from living in two very distinct environments, first the South, then years in Chicago, then back to the South, with countless time spent on the road to here, there and everywhere. Dills deals in lore for apes triumphant in the downfall. He once again proves himself a master of tradition gone haywire in a country addicted to its own mythology, supplying the antidote with his 21st-century folklore." --Paul A. Toth, author of "Airplane Novel"

Triumph of the Ape: Stories

Literature & Fiction

Dills, Todd

Short Stories & Anthologies

The2ndHand

Fiction. Inertia is a force, a powerful force, but it's not the only one. Courtney and Martin know all the words to all the songs on the mix tape of their lives. They have the cynical in-jokes down, the snide asides, the nonchalant pose. But beneath the practiced façade of self-satisfying ennui, these kids are staring down their futures, struggling in soured relationships with lovers and families, and finding out just what it takes to break out, if it's even possible. HERE IS HOW IT HAPPENS."Spencer Dew writes like a quiet maniac who sees the violence under the fa‡ade of everyday things, and the beauty under the violence. With X-ray vision and fine-tuned prose, Dew discovers insights and absurdities in the Americana of box stores, elite colleges, poetry students, buffet restaurants, historic plaques, alternative radio, conspiracy theorists, installation artists, and lug-headed drug experimentalists. HERE IS HOW IT HAPPENS explores the place where the heartland meets the rust belt meets the precarious bubble of academia, and finds redemption in the purity of longing and the shit coffee of an Amish country diner."—Karen Lillis

Here Is How It Happens

Contemporary

Ampersand Books

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Books by Dew, Spencer

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dew, Spencer. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali (Class 200: New Studies in Religion)

The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali (Class 200: New Studies in Religion)

Triumph of the Ape: Stories

Here Is How It Happens