The Michigan State University African Atlantic Research Team (AART) cordially invites you to attend its
25th Anniversary Symposium to be held virtually, October 15, 2021. Given our on-going research on religion and African descendants in the Americas, and the indebtedness we owe to those who mentored and inspired that work, the conceptual and thematic focus of the Symposium will be: “Opacity, Transcendence, and Tradition in African Diaspora Religion of the Americas: Horizons of Knowing.”
Among confirmed program participants are Veronique Altglas, Queen’s University Belfast; David Carrasco, Harvard University; James Spickard, University of California Redlands; James H. Sweet, University of Wisconsin; and a keynote address by J. Lorand Matory, Duke University. We also will recognize the legacy of Michigan State University’s late Dr. Ruth Simms Hamilton who introduced ideas of the African Diaspora as a global social phenomenon to many in academic arenas. An academic gift presentation will be made to her Alma Mater, Talladega College of Alabama.
The Symposium’s conceptual intent also is to elaborate Dr. Charles H. Long’s ‘counter-hegemonic’ metaphor of opacity as a challenge to repressive analytical typologies that impose meanings inappropriate and hostile to the ‘lived reality’ they seek to describe.
The focus is derived from AART’s cross-disciplinary research into sacred ideas and practices of African descendants of the Americas’ African Diaspora as fundamental contributions to the hemisphere’s diverse and ever-evolving religious landscape.
The Symposium Program will simultaneously celebrate the 25 Years AART has mentored students of color toward the academic PhD as we include a keynote address and two panel dialogues discussing the State of Research regarding Opacity, Transcendence, and Tradition of African Descendant Religion in the Americas’ Portion of the African Diaspora.
Registration is now available via Eventbrite at https://bitly.com/3n0qkw1. Cost is $25 for professionals and $10 for students. Please share this announcement with researchers, scholars, educators, and serious others who may wish to join us in this historic event.
The African Atlantic Research Team - aart.symposium@gmail.com