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Race, Equality, Citizenship, and Belonging: Reading James Baldwin and Wong Kim Ark

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2022

M. Christian Green
Affiliation:
Special Content Editor, Journal of Law and Religion
David True
Affiliation:
Member of Political Theology Editorial Collective
Silas W. Allard
Affiliation:
Managing Editor, Journal of Law and Religion
Vincent Lloyd
Affiliation:
Member of Political Theology Editorial Collective

Extract

The following essays are part of a collaboration between the Journal of Law and Religion and Political Theology. Editors from both journals selected the two texts interrogated and interpreted here—James Baldwin’s essay “Equal in Paris” and the United States Supreme Court decision in the case United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). The purpose of the collaboration was twofold. The first purpose was to see what new interpretations arise when scholars working primarily in law read the essay by Baldwin, who has been a touchstone in much contemporary Black theology, and when scholars working in religious studies read the legal decision in Wong Kim Ark, a case in which the Supreme Court extended citizenship to the child of Chinese immigrants who conceived and bore him on American soil. The second purpose was to divide publication between the journals, with each journal publishing three of the six essays, with a view to building bridges between readers of each journal over a topic at the intersection of both law and political theology.

Type
Essay Roundtable: An Exchange of Essays with Political Theology
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University

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References

1 Paradise, Brandon, “Confronting the Truth: The Necessity of Love for Justice,” Journal of Law and Religion 37, no. 2 (2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (this issue).

2 Paradise, “Confronting the Truth.”

3 Siddiqui, Mona, “Belonging in Exile: James Baldwin in Paris,” Journal of Law and Religion 37, no. 2 (2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (this issue).

4 Siddiqui, “Belonging in Exile.”

5 Baldwin, James, “Autobiographical Notes,” in Notes of a Native Son (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), 39 Google Scholar, at 9, as quoted in Siddiqui, “Belonging in Exile.”

6 Marzouki, Nadia, “The Great Gray City of Light,” Journal of Law and Religion 37, no. 2 (2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (this issue).

7 Yelle, Robert A., “On Slaves, Aliens, and Other Threats to the Body Politic,” Political Theology 23, no. 5 (2022)Google Scholar.

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9 Capps and Koh, “Blood Power.”

10 Capps and Koh.

11 Koh, Jennifer Lee, “Race, Immigration Law, and Christianity: Reflections and Tensions Raised by United States v. Wong Kim Ark,” Political Theology 23, no. 5 (2022)Google Scholar.

12 Koh, “Race, Immigration Law, and Christianity.”