Africana Religions: Theorizing Traditions, Geographies, and Temporalities

Symposium 2013

The Journal of Africana Religions Announces “Africana Religions: Theorizing Traditions,Geographies, and Temporalities”

Featuring Keynote and Plenary Lectures by

Sylviane Diouf, author of Servants of Allah and Dreams of Africa in Alabama
&
Albert J. Raboteau, author of Slave Religion and A Fire in the Bones

PLUS PANELS ON
“Mapping Africana Religions”
“Africana Temporalities and Method”
“The Present and Future Study of
Africana Religions”

Accommodations
Special Symposium Rate of $139 per Night Available at the
Hilton Orrington, http://www.hotelorrington.com/, 847-866-8700
1710 Orrington Avenue
Evanston, Illinois 60201

Symposium Location
McCormick Tribune Center
1870 South Campus Drive
Evanston, Illinois 60208

Friday, March 8

5:30 PM Reception

7:00 Keynote Address

Welcome by Sylvester Johnson, Northwestern University

Address by Sylviane Diouf, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Saturday, March 9

7:00 – 8:45 Continental Breakfast

9:00 – 11:00 Roundtable I

Mapping Africana Religions: Transnationalism, Diaspora, and Globalization

Where does a researcher find Africana religions? This panel will engage the implications of transnationalism, diaspora, and globalization for the study of Africana religions. The panel will also highlight the historical significance of such categories for interpreting histories of religion more generally.

Panelists
Suad Abdul Khabeer, Purdue University
Yvonne Chireau, Swarthmore College
Paul Christopher Johnson, University of Michigan
Convener: Nitasha Sharma, Northwestern University

11:00 – 11:30 Break

11:30 – 12:45 Lunchtime Plenary Address by Albert J. Raboteau, Princeton

1:15 – 3:15 Roundtable II

Africana Temporalities and Method

This panel engages with the chronological scope of the Journal of Africana Religions, which comprises periods of antiquity to the contemporary era. How does scholarship on religions of antiquity square with the Africana religions purview? Is there a suitable medieval frame for Africana religions? How does the concept of modernity function for Africana religion researchers? How is time itself (e.g., primitivism) particularly related to the study of Africana religions?

Panelists
Gay Byron, Howard University
Charles Long, University of California Santa Barbara, Emeritus
Paul Lovejoy, York University
Convener: Sherwin Bryant, Northwestern University

3:30 – 5:00 Proseminar

The Present and Future Study of Africana Religions

This final session will ask panelists and participants alike to bring together ideas and themes from the symposium and pose unanswered questions. Panelists will briefly share responses to the day’s idea-making, and then audience members will be asked to pose questions and offer comments in an informal give-and-take among everyone in the room.

Discussants
Darlene Clark Hine, Northwestern University
Kathryn Lofton, Yale University
Sylvester Johnson, Northwestern University
Convener: Edward Curtis, IU School of Liberal Arts, Indianapolis

Sunday, March 10
Departures