Animacies as Theodicies: The Possibilities New Materialist Theologies in Asian American Religious Futures

We propose a theological rereading of Asian Americanist engagements with the turn in the humanities toward new materialisms. Rereading the work of three Asian Americanist new materialist scholars – Mel Y. Chen, Jasbir Puar, and Michelle Nancy Huang – we argue that the consideration of the concept of ‘animacies’ in Asian Americanist critical scholarship is a tacit exploration of theodicy. What is theodical is the way that Asian American subject formation is, as Mimi Khúc puts it, animated as perpetually unwell. What is indeterminate in these theodicies, we claim, is the animating source of such unwellness and whether other Asian American religious futures are therefore possible by way of switching gods, so to speak. The future liberation from the unwellness associated with orientalizing racism might thus be found in theologies that new materialist scholars in our discipline have alluded to but have yet to fully explore.