This roundtable brings together scholarship that explores the edges of labour and empire. Panelists present research on the shadow-economies and theologies of post-emancipation afterlives, sacrificial markets that demand destruction, technocratic evangelicalism that prepares terrain for technification of markets, and the reproductive and racialized economic forces that foreclose bodily autonomy and reinforce technocratic control. Tying all these papers together is a concern for the racialized and gendered logics of empire, from disembodied landscapes of the technosphere to the most intimate landscapes of reproductive monitoring and longing.
In Scenes of Subjection, Saidiya Hartman famously argues that emancipation, rather than marking an absolute break between slavery and freedom, inaugurates an ambivalent condition defined by the convergence of abstract equality with new forms of racialized exploitation. This paper investigates the role of religion in this process, focusing on how Christian conceptions of personhood facilitated the formal transformation of emancipated Black subjects from chattel into individuals. In doing so, it engages a burgeoning literature which tracks the legacies, vestiges, or afterlives of racial slavery in modern concepts and practices of religion. Reading Hartman alongside Southern slave law and Christian proslavery literature, I argue that the subsumption of Black labor following emancipation operationalized an already existing isomorphism between “chattel” and “labor” established by the translatability of each into a shared Christian theological idiom. The paper concludes by considering the ramifications of this analysis for wider discussions of religion, race, and capitalism.
This paper explores the emerging markets of fertility awareness (FA) and menstrual cycle tracking (CT), emphasizing their intersections with religious, economic, feminist, scientific, and technocratic frameworks. Historically linked to religious contexts (like Catholic Natural Family Planning), FA has largely secularized, reflecting tensions between religious heritage, secularism, and women’s rights in the digital age. Drawing on qualitative research in North America, the study highlights a shift from couples teaching couples to women teaching women, alongside competing economic models: collaborative, non-profit approaches versus entrepreneurial, neoliberal frameworks. These dynamics reveal power struggles over knowledge access, affordability, and inclusivity. The research emphasizes how FA and CT navigate the interplay of religion and economy, and highlights resistance to technocratic control through low-tech, empowering practices. This presentation of selected results from a broader study contributes to discussions on reproductive economies, ethics, and the commodification of body literacy in post-secular contexts.
This paper interrogates the intertwined trajectories of ritual sacrifice and economic expenditure in the luxury market through Georges Bataille’s theoretical lens. Focusing on the largely concealed practice of overstock destruction, the study reveals how this unofficial yet pivotal business strategy operates as a form of sacrificial expenditure. The deliberate elimination of surplus inventory serves as a modern analog to sacrificial acts, underscoring how the boundaries between the sacred and the secular blur in contemporary economic practices. By critically analyzing the structural logic behind overstock destruction and its role in sustaining market dynamics, the paper challenges prevailing secular narratives and critiques the mechanisms of value production of late Capitalism. Employing insights from recent work on Economic Theology and a comparative textual methodology, this research contributes to the ongoing dialogue of Religion & Economy, offering a fresh perspective on the interplay between ritual, sacrifice, and capitalist economy.
This paper is a religious history of Elizabeth "Baby Doe" Tabor that examines her vast archive of miscellany, including dream interpretations, accounts of spirit visions, tea and coffee divinations, palm readings, horoscopes, and prayer cards, in order to approach questions about religious sensibility, aesthetic rendering, extractive industry, and political economy in the western U.S. during the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century. Tabor was a practicing Catholic who sought her fortune on the Colorado frontier and found it in the silver mines of Leadville and its leading man, Horace A.W. Tabor. Her story has been told in the annals of frontier history and in Cold War-era opera. This paper examines these and other renderings of her life in order to reconsider religious forms in the context of an imperial nation and changing monetary policy.
Evangelical language permeates tech culture. “Angel investors” provide financing to small start-ups, business how-to books compare dedicated customers to “true believers,” and many technology companies have people on their payroll with the official title of “evangelist.” Part marketer, part missionary, and part teacher, the technology evangelist “educates customers and other key market players about the benefits of specific technology, including platforms, software tools, and applications.” Based on interviews with technology evangelists and an analysis of the business literature that gave rise to technology evangelism, this paper traces how since the late 1980s what I call Christianesque ideas about the transmission of life-changing good news, conversion, and discipleship have come to structure the interpersonal and financial relationships at the foundation of technological innovation, sales, and adoption.
While exclusionary forces continue to claim Muslims do not belong in India, specific Muslims are uniquely visible across diverse genres of cultural representation. This paper focuses on the tension between official forms of Muslim exclusion and the visibility of certain types of Muslims in diverse media forms including commercial theatre, Hindi cinema, and heritage tourism. Created by Muslim and non-Muslim producers, the paradoxical hyper-visibility of selective Muslims shows that the Hindutva movement functions not only as a politico-religious project but also as an economic one. Such representations support a neoliberal capitalist agenda that undermines Muslim dignity (Kunnummal 2022). Questions this paper explores include: what kinds of Muslims are “sellable” for twenty-first century forms of cultural consumption? How are the goals and strategies of producers to make Muslims visible in genres of cultural representation shaped by the forces of twenty-first century, late-stage Indian capitalism and neoliberalism?
Should be Business Meeting. Thank you!