Race and Religion

Workshop Description

This workshop seeks to address the ideas, meanings, and practices of the sacred within racially marginalized communities.  In addition, this workshop also seeks to examine the way the social construction of race impacts how we think about religion.  Moreover, this workshop acknowledges both an intellectual conviction to the exploration of religion among racialized peoples and a commitment to engaging with and clarifying the impact of religion in racialized communities.  We convene this workshop to provide a forum for graduate students and faculty at the University of Chicago and area institutions to explore the dynamics and problems of race and religion.  The workshop is cosponsored by Professors Dwight Hopkins and Curtis Evans and is coordinated by Julius Crump of the Divinity School.

This workshop will meet on a bi-weekly basis on Tuesdays at 4:30pm in Room 106 in Swift Hall of the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Here is a map to Swift Hall.

April 3

“Fire in The Master’s House: Islam and Muslims in the Black Radical Imagination”
Sohail Daulatzai, PhD.
University of California-Irvine
Department of Film and Media Studies and the Program in African American Studies

April 10 (Friday – 9:30am)

“Iranian Ethnic Identity and Shi’ite Islam Post-Arab Conquest of Iran”
Ed Hayes
PhD. Candidate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Univeristy of Chicago

April 23

“Muslim Cool: Race, Religion and Hip Hop in America”
Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, PhD.
Purdue University
Assistant Professor of Anthropology/African American Studies

April 30

“Immanuel Kant and Islam: Within the Boundaries of Reason Alone?”
Daniel Bannoura
University of Chicago Divinity School
A.M. Candidate

May 7

“Rehumanizing the Inmate Other: A Call from Inside the Iron Cage.”
Cynthia Nielsen, PhD.
Villanova University
Catherine of Siena Fellow

Download paper here.

May 15 (Wednesday, 12:00 – 1:30pm)

“Transitioned and Transitioning to Islam”
Aminah McCloud, PhD.
Depaul University
Director, Islamic World Studies Program
Professor, Islamic Studies in Religious Studies Dept.
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Islamic Law & Culture

May 21

“Blackamerican Salafism and the Islamic Awakening: Signposts in Global Media”
Thomas E.R. Maguire, Ph.D.
Associate Director
Center for Middle Eastern Studies
University of Chicago

June 4

TBA
Debra Majeed, PhD.
Beloit College
Professor and Chair in the Philosophy & Religious Studies Department

January 10 (cosponsored with Religion and Ethics, et al.)

“Shadow of a Doubt:  Hitchcock on Augustine, Freud, and Horrendous Evil”
Professor Jeffrey Stout
Princeton University
Professor of Religion; Chair, Committee for Film Studies

January 24 (Thursday)

“Something Creative 4 You: Crafting a Holistic Theology in Search of Holistic Life”
Professor Joanne Marie Terrell
Chicago Theological Seminary
Asoociate Professor of Ethics and Theology

February 5

“A Walk Around Woodson: Black Sacred Space, Musical Meaning, and Social Movements”
Lauren Eldridge
PhD. Student, Ethnomusicology
University of Chicago

February 26 — ***CANCELLED***

“Rehumanizing the Inmate Other: A Call from Inside the Iron Cage”
Cynthia Nielsen, PhD.
Villanova University
Catherine of Siena Teaching Fellow

March 7 (cosponsored with Religion and Ethics)

“Deliberating from the Margins: The Moral Problem of Blackness and the Democratic Value of Double Consciousness”
Terrence Johnson, PhD.
Haverford College
Assistant Professor of Religion

Download paper here.

October 23

“Religious Community and Racial Endogamy: The Impact of Congregational Social Embeddedness on Interracial Romance”
Sam Perry
PhD. Student, Sociology
University of Chicago

November 8 (Thursday)

“Religion, Terror, and the American Dream: A Psychohistorical Interpretation of Terrorism in America”
Lee Butler, PhD.
Professor of Theology and Psychology
Chicago Theological Seminary

December 11

“Divine Evil, Divine Racism and Chance: Another Response to William R. Jones”
Julius Crump
PhD. Student, Theology
University of Chicago