This roundtable brings together diverse scholars of religion, capitalism, and social movements for a wide-ranging discussion on Lucia Hulsether’s *Capitalist Humanitarianism* (Duke, 2023). *Capitalist Humanitarianism* details the emergence of a new form of capitalist cultural politics that transforms antiracist and anticapitalist critique into a historical consciousness that legitimates further market expansion, which has its roots in ‘progressive’ Protestant and liberation theologies. Hulsether eschews the contemporary trend to theorize the fugitive and otherwise. Instead, Hulsether offers a ruthless criticism of capitalist humanitarian projects, showing that they offer nothing but a cruel optimism within the totally depraved world of racial capitalism. *Capitalist Humanitarianism* aims to demonstrate “how a more developed vocabulary around religion can be a jetpack for the task of ideology critique.” The roundtable takes up the invitation and aims to open up a larger conversation on what it means to reflect on religion amidst the ruins of capitalist violence.
Lucia Hulsether | lhulseth@skidmore.edu | View |