Reading Hebrews and 1 Peter with the African American Great Migration: Diaspora, Place and Identity [Hardcover]

Kaalund examines the constructed and contested Christian-Jewish identities in Hebrews and 1 Peter through the lens of the New Negro, a diasporic identity similarly constructed and contested during the Great Migration in the early 20th century. Like the identity Christian, the New Negro emerged in a context marked by instability, creativity, and the need for a sense of permanence in a hostile political environment.

Upon examination, both identities also show complex internal diversity and debate that disrupts any simple articulation as purely resistant (or accommodating) to its hegemonic and oppressive environment. Kaalund's investigation into the construction of the New Negro highlights this multiplicity and contends that the rhetoric of place, race, and gender were integral to these processes of inventing a way of being in the world that wasseeminglynot reliant on one's physical space. Putting these issues into dialogue with 1 Peter and Hebrews allows for a reading of the formation of Christian identity as similarly engaging the rhetoric of place and race in constructive and contested ways.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Chapter 1: Diaspora Space, Displaced Identities, and Diasporic Religion
Part I: Models of Ethno-Spatial Reasoning
2. Chapter 2: A Place to Call Home: The Great Migration and the Making of the New Negro
3. Chapter 3: Called Out: Alexandrian Jewish Identity in the Roman Imperial Context
Part II: A New Negro Hermeneutic
4. Chapter 4: A Better Country: Hebrews and an Identity Formerly Known as Jewish
5. Chapter 5: A Peculiar People: 1 Peter and an Identity that will Come to be Known as Christian
Conclusion
6. Chapter 6: Called Out: Rethinking Centers and Margins
Bibliography
Index