"A Serious Human Discourse": Charles H. Long and the Challenge of Elliptical Thinking: Ellipsis … The Collected Writings of Charles H. Long, by Charles H. Long, London, Bloomsbury, 2018, 456 pp., £130 (hardback), ISBN:978-1-3500-3263-7. Issue 1 (2nd January 2020) - Walker, Corey D. B.
ABSTRACT: For over fifty years, Charles H. Long has made critical contributions to the academic study of religion and the humanities. The publication of Ellipsis … The Collected Writings of Charles H. Long brings together over forty of Long's germinal essays. The collection is a veritable tour de force of what can be called Long's "elliptical thinking." This article places the essays collected in Ellipsis in conversation with some of the key issues regarding the production and reproduction of knowledge in the modern world. By critically attending to the nuances and complexities of Black religion, Long unfolds a broad theoretical and methodological terrain for the project of thought. In so doing, Long's work opens new ground for pursuing projects that destabilize sedimented ways of knowing, particularly projects involving thoughts, cultures, and expressions that gather under the capacious category of religion.