J Brent Crosson
Biographic Data
| ID | 189047 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Brent Crosson |
| GIVEN NAMES | J Brent |
| FAMILY NAME | Crosson |
| SIGNATURE | CROSSON J B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Religious Studies, University of Texas |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 25 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
What Is a Petro-state? Masking and Unmasking Power in a Fossil-Fueled World
Ryan Cecil Jobson's The Petro-state Masquerade: Oil, Sovereignty, and Power in Trinidad and Tobago (2024) is a groundbreaking combination of careful historical research and in-depth ethnography that produces a timely intervention on the politics of fossil fuels in Trinidad. In this essay, the author engages with Jobson's book to argue for the necessity of (1) historicizing the petro-state as a term that carries imperial baggage, (2) rethinking th…
Race, Nation, and Diaspora in the Southern Caribbean: Unsettling the Ethnic Conflict Model
In much of the southern Caribbean (i.e., Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana), ethno-political tensions between numerically commensurable populations of South Asian and African diasporic populations have structured narratives of postcolonial conflict between an "African" and an "Indian" political party, setting the limits of national narratives. This article challenges this narrative on a number of points, drawing on oral histories and ethnographic re…
Humanism and Enlightenment
Humanism and Enlightenment are words associated with the birth of rights-bearing Man. Yet this birth was accompanied by the rise of another Enlightenment concept: race. This chapter theorizes the effects of the twinned, contradictory birth of pseudo-biological human difference and “universal” Man. Starting in the Renaissance and concluding in the “posthuman” present, the chapter shows how conceptions of the human emerged from interactions between…
Don't Study People: Disentanglement and the Dangers of Studying Others in Trinidad and in Anthropology
Throughout my fieldwork on the island of Trinidad, my interlocutors told me "don't study people" because it might lead one to "take on" the thoughts and feelings of others as a kind of weight. In this article, I consider how this cautionary adage about the dangers of proximity reframes:1) the act of studying others through ethnography, and 2) Liberal understandings of the person and society. Within academia's critique of the modern West, proximit…
Inventive Traditions: Authority and Power in African Diasporic Religions
Experiments with Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad
Catching Power: Problems with Possession, Sovereignty, and African Religions in Trinidad
In 2010 and 2011, female students at my field site in southern Trinidad experienced 'mass possessions' that closed down the secondary school. While Pentecostal-charismatic Christians figured African traditions (particularly 'Obeah') as atavisms that caused the events, observers also blamed the 'possessions' on salient markers of a twenty-first-century modernity - particularly the Internet, 'science', citizen insecurity, and illicit transnational …
What Possessed You? Spirits, Property, and Political Sovereignty at the Limits of 'Possession
This special issue brings together two seemingly opposed concepts - spirit possession and sovereignty - to ask how possessing lands, spirits, and selves can alter the theorisation of political prac
Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Trinidad
Research Article| November 01 2014 Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Trinidad J. Brent Crosson J. Brent Crosson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Small Axe (2014) 18 (3 (45)): 18-34. https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-2826434 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation J. Brent Crosson; Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Tr…
What Possessed You? Spirits, Property, and Political Sovereignty at the Limits of 'Possession
This special issue brings together two seemingly opposed concepts - spirit possession and sovereignty - to ask how possessing lands, spirits, and selves can alter the theorisation of political prac
Catching Power: Problems with Possession, Sovereignty, and African Religions in Trinidad
In 2010 and 2011, female students at my field site in southern Trinidad experienced 'mass possessions' that closed down the secondary school. While Pentecostal-charismatic Christians figured African traditions (particularly 'Obeah') as atavisms that caused the events, observers also blamed the 'possessions' on salient markers of a twenty-first-century modernity - particularly the Internet, 'science', citizen insecurity, and illicit transnational …
Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Trinidad
Research Article| November 01 2014 Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Trinidad J. Brent Crosson J. Brent Crosson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Small Axe (2014) 18 (3 (45)): 18-34. https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-2826434 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation J. Brent Crosson; Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Tr…
Race, Nation, and Diaspora in the Southern Caribbean: Unsettling the Ethnic Conflict Model
In much of the southern Caribbean (i.e., Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana), ethno-political tensions between numerically commensurable populations of South Asian and African diasporic populations have structured narratives of postcolonial conflict between an "African" and an "Indian" political party, setting the limits of national narratives. This article challenges this narrative on a number of points, drawing on oral histories and ethnographic re…
Don't Study People: Disentanglement and the Dangers of Studying Others in Trinidad and in Anthropology
Throughout my fieldwork on the island of Trinidad, my interlocutors told me "don't study people" because it might lead one to "take on" the thoughts and feelings of others as a kind of weight. In this article, I consider how this cautionary adage about the dangers of proximity reframes:1) the act of studying others through ethnography, and 2) Liberal understandings of the person and society. Within academia's critique of the modern West, proximit…
Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Trinidad
Research Article| November 01 2014 Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Trinidad J. Brent Crosson J. Brent Crosson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Small Axe (2014) 18 (3 (45)): 18-34. https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-2826434 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation J. Brent Crosson; Own People: Race, "Altered Solidarities," and the Limits of Culture in Tr…
Inventive Traditions: Authority and Power in African Diasporic Religions
Experiments with Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad
Catching Power: Problems with Possession, Sovereignty, and African Religions in Trinidad
In 2010 and 2011, female students at my field site in southern Trinidad experienced 'mass possessions' that closed down the secondary school. While Pentecostal-charismatic Christians figured African traditions (particularly 'Obeah') as atavisms that caused the events, observers also blamed the 'possessions' on salient markers of a twenty-first-century modernity - particularly the Internet, 'science', citizen insecurity, and illicit transnational …
What Possessed You? Spirits, Property, and Political Sovereignty at the Limits of 'Possession
This special issue brings together two seemingly opposed concepts - spirit possession and sovereignty - to ask how possessing lands, spirits, and selves can alter the theorisation of political prac
Humanism and Enlightenment
Humanism and Enlightenment are words associated with the birth of rights-bearing Man. Yet this birth was accompanied by the rise of another Enlightenment concept: race. This chapter theorizes the effects of the twinned, contradictory birth of pseudo-biological human difference and “universal” Man. Starting in the Renaissance and concluding in the “posthuman” present, the chapter shows how conceptions of the human emerged from interactions between…
Don't Study People: Disentanglement and the Dangers of Studying Others in Trinidad and in Anthropology
Throughout my fieldwork on the island of Trinidad, my interlocutors told me "don't study people" because it might lead one to "take on" the thoughts and feelings of others as a kind of weight. In this article, I consider how this cautionary adage about the dangers of proximity reframes:1) the act of studying others through ethnography, and 2) Liberal understandings of the person and society. Within academia's critique of the modern West, proximit…
Race, Nation, and Diaspora in the Southern Caribbean: Unsettling the Ethnic Conflict Model
In much of the southern Caribbean (i.e., Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana), ethno-political tensions between numerically commensurable populations of South Asian and African diasporic populations have structured narratives of postcolonial conflict between an "African" and an "Indian" political party, setting the limits of national narratives. This article challenges this narrative on a number of points, drawing on oral histories and ethnographic re…
What Is a Petro-state? Masking and Unmasking Power in a Fossil-Fueled World
Ryan Cecil Jobson's The Petro-state Masquerade: Oil, Sovereignty, and Power in Trinidad and Tobago (2024) is a groundbreaking combination of careful historical research and in-depth ethnography that produces a timely intervention on the politics of fossil fuels in Trinidad. In this essay, the author engages with Jobson's book to argue for the necessity of (1) historicizing the petro-state as a term that carries imperial baggage, (2) rethinking th…
Sociology (6 works) · Caribbean history, culture, and politics (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (3 works) · Cuban History and Society (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Ethnography (3 works)