Charles H. Long’s Significations (1986), or, Making Problems for the Study of Religion in the Netherlands

Abstract

As part of NTT JTSR’s series on Key Texts, this article discusses Charles H. Long’s collection Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion. Since its publication in 1986, Significations has inspired a wide range of scholars in the United States. In this article, I will outline some of the main themes and concerns of the text and review its reception in (Black) religious studies. I will then explore the potential impact of Long’s work on religious studies in the Netherlands, where it has been largely overlooked. To do so, I will bring Significations in conversation with the recent debate on Markus Davidsen’s vision for the study of religion in the Netherlands (published in NTT in 2020). I will argue that Long, as a “bringer of problems,” can help “reorient” the field of religious studies in the Netherlands towards a more thorough, forceful, and self-reflexive engagement with (Dutch) colonialism and its afterlife—both as a material reality and as a hermeneutical problem.