Date:
Location:
Friday, December 7, 2018
9:45 – 10:00 Opening Remarks
Emmanuel Akyeampong, Faculty Associate, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; Oppenheimer Faculty Director, Harvard University Center for African Studies; Professor of History, History Department; Professor of African and African American Studies, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University.
10:00–10:30 Religion and Public Life: Framing the Discourse
Jacob Olupona, Co-chair, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Religion in Public Life in Africa and the African Diaspora; Professor of African Religious Traditions, Harvard Divinity School; Professor of African and African American Studies, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University.
10:30–12:30 Session I: Reform Movements (Islam & Christianity)
Moderator: Rita Kiki Edozie, Associate Dean and Professor, McCormack Graduate School, UMass Boston.
“The Religious Origins of Modern Nigeria”
Olufemi Vaughan, Alfred Sargent Lee '41 and Mary Farley Ames Lee Professor of Black Studies, Department of Black Studies, Amherst College.
"Secularizing Islam: The Colonial Encounter and the Creation of a British Colonial Islamic Law in Northern
Nigeria, 1903-1960.”
Rabiat Akande, Graduate Student Associate, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; SJD Candidate, Harvard Law School.
“Islam and Religious Experience in Africa’s Swahili Speaking Region –A Linguistic Consideration”
John M. Mugane, Professor of the Practice of African Languages and Cultures, Director of the African Language Program, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University.
“The Role of the Catholic Church in the Democratization Process in Africa: Lessons from the ‘National Conferences’ in Benin and DR Congo”
Nougoutna Norbert Litoing, Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University.
12:30–2:00 Break for lunch
2:00–4:00 Session II: Institutional Churches
Moderator: Marla F. Frederick, Co-chair, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Religion in Public Life in Africa and the African Diaspora; Professor of African and African American Studies and of Religion, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University.
“The Racial Politics and Transnational Genealogies of Dominican Protestantism”
Christina Davidson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University.
“Religion and Nationalism in Mozambique: A Historical Survey through the Lens of Mission Schools
and their Language Policies”
Devaka Premawardhana, Assistant Professor of Religion, Department of Religion, Emory University.
“The Prophets and the Law: The Political Activities Of Churches in Colonial and Post-Colonial Kenya”
Christopher Rhodes, Lecturer, Division of Social Sciences, College of General Studies, Boston University.
“’I’m Black But’: Racial Discourses in the UCKG”
Rachel Cantave, Visiting Assistant Professor, Program in Latin American and Latino Studies, Swarthmore College.
4:00–4:30 Coffee Break (provided)
4:30–6:30 Session III: African and African Diasporic Religions
Moderator: George Paul Meiu, John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Dept. of Anthropology & Dept. of African & African American Studies, Harvard University.
“A Quest for New Knowledge: African Americans as Interpreters of Dagara Spirituality”
Meredith Coleman-Tobias, Assistant Professor of Religion, Mount Holyoke College.
“Policy and Poetry: Progressive African American Religion in the Public Square”
Brad R. Braxton, Director and Supervisory Curator, The Center for the Study of African American Religious Life, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC.
“A Genealogy of Spirit Worship: “Multiculturalism” and Devotion in Haitian Vodou”
Kyrah Malika Daniels, Assistant Professor, Departments of Art History and of African and African Diaspora Studies, Boston College.
“African Religion, Police Violence, and Justice in Trinidad”
J. Brent Crosson, Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Texas, Austin.
