MisReading America presents original research on and conversation about reading formations in American communities of color, using the phenomenon of the reading of scriptures--''scripturalizing''--as an analytical wedge. Scriptures here are understood as shorthand for complex social phenomena, practices, and dynamics. The authors take up scripturalizing as a window onto the self-understandings, politics, practices, and orientations of marginalized communities. These communities have in common the context that is the United States, with the challenges it holds for all regarding: pressure to conform to conventional-canonical forms of communication, representation, and embodiment (mimicry); opportunities to speak back to and confront and overturn conventionality (interruptions); and the need to experience ongoing meaningful and complex relationships (reorientation) to the centering politics, practices, and myths that define ''America.''

AcknowledgmentsContributorsIntroduction: Knowing Ex-Centrics, Ex-Centric Knowing - Vincent L. WimbushChapter 1: Native Evangelicals and Scriptural Ethnologies - Andrea SmithChapter 2: Scriptures as Sundials in African American Lives - Velma E. LoveChapter 3: Reading the Word in America: U.S. Latino/a Religious Communities and Their Scriptures - Efrain AgostoChapter 4: Asian Americans, Bible Believers: An Ethnological Study - Tat-siong Benny LiewChapter 5: Maronite Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims from the Arab Region: Between Empire, Racialization, and Assimilation - Nadine Naber and Matthew StifflerAppendix 1: Chapter 1: Research InformationAppendix 2.1: Chapter 4: Interview QuestionnaireAppendix 2.2: Chapter 4: Collaborators/Research Team MembersAppendix 2.3: Chapter 4: Interviewee List (With Pseudonyms)BibliographyIndex