This paper examines contemporary iterations of Carnival in the U.S. and Global South as diasporic spaces where Black femme sensuality, spirituality, and aesthetic performance converge on grounds of both the sacred and secular. While often understood as near exclusively secular cultural festivals, Carnival traditions remain deeply rooted in African and Afro-Caribbean religious cosmologies. I argue that these sites function as spaces where Black women renegotiate embodiment, spirituality, and relationality within the conditions of late-capitalist empires.
Drawing on the work of Sylvia Wynter, scholars of Black religion and womanist thought, and scholars of queer, feminist, and sexuality studies, the paper considers the Caribbean and the Black American metropolis as interconnected diasporic sites for rethinking Black ontology and African(a) womanist theology. Through attention to embodied performance, diasporic music cultures, and festival practices, I suggest that Carnival and what I regard as “Carnival theologies” permeate through popular culture today and operate as forms of cultural technology through which Black women articulate alternative modes of being and relating to the human, earth, and divine, often expanding the conceptual boundaries of womanist religious thought across the African diaspora.