Mas to Mass

There are various religious experiences if religion is defined as a cultural set of beliefs and practices that people gather around. If part of this is the gathering of persons inspired to give focused attention, adoration, and commitment to a subject, Trinidad Carnival and its attending practices fit into the category of religious experience. I argue that Carnival shares the dynamism of Black Catholic embodied religiosity, particularly regarding its ability to enflesh freedom incarnationally by making a way for African-Caribbean people to embody their spirituality and make sense of their corporeal reality in an unjust world. I explore how Trinidad Carnival became a religious practice of liberation for me that clarifies the significance of the corporeal body of Black people, the unifying effect of music, the healing impact of ecstatic dance, and the connection to God that divine enjoyment of this nature enables

Adoration · Aesthetics · Art · Black theology · Dance · Dynamism · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Literature · Liturgy · Religiosity · Sociology · Spirituality · Subject (documents · Theology · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Gender Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · Religious studies · Social Psychology · Religious Studies