Working in a tradition of black male studies associated with the philosopher of race, Tommy Curry, Ronald Neal boldly courts controversy with a blistering critique of antiblackness as expressed in a convergence between ruling class whites and some black feminists in their dehumanizing assessments of black males, masculinity, and manhood. Neal describes this convergence as a "demonic imaginary," and argues that contemporary critical theory, including intersectionality, is predicated on the abjection of the black male.

William D. Hart, Macalester College

Ronald B. Neal's Beyond Death and Jail: Anti-Blackness, Black Masculinity, and the Demonic Imagination is a masterful analysis of the cultural, theological, and socio-ontological obstacles to Black males' humanity. Neal's thorough investigation of the demonic imagination, that abyss of negativity generating endless caricatures of Black men and boys, demonstrates how gender theory, feminism, and liberalism not only depend on but generate dehumanizing tropes of Black males. Neal's Beyond Death and Jail powerfully disrupts the mythologies projected onto theory through our sacred creeds of identity.

Tommy J. Curry, The University of Edinburgh