Presenters' Bios and Abstracts
Conference Presentations
Dr. Stephanie Boddie, Baylor University, and Isaiah Baba, Baylor University: “Singing with the Soil: Exploring African Diasporic Farming Traditions and Theological Connections”
Dr. Stephanie Boddie (Baylor University) and Bianca Smith (Baylor University): “Migration stories: Me, My People, and Creatures Big and Small”
Laura Bini Carter (CUNY Graduate Center): “Ecologies of marronnage as self-repair in Guadeloupe”
Yvonne Chireau (Swarthmore College): “Care and Creation in the Conjure Women’s Garden: An Ecological Perspective”
Simone Delaney (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Black Electronic Music as a Means of Eco-Ancestral Repair: Aural Traces of More-than-human Relationalities”
Cecilia Lisa Eliceche (Federal University of Bahia), Bayyinah Bello and Jean-Daniel Lafontant: “Vodou ecological ethic for Earth Liberation” panel
Gbenga Falana (The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa): “Echoes of Ecological Activism: Yoruba Spoken Word ‘Omi Yaya’ and Musical Narratives on Flood Disaster”
Ijeoma Forchu (University of Nigeria Nsukka): “Ala, the Eagle and the Kite: Advocates of environmental sustainability in Igbo songs”
Viktor Givens (Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning) and Roman Norfleet: Co-facilitation of sonic eco ritual drama “Mudfish”
Chad Kehinde Graham (University of Delaware): “A Psalm/Song for Osain”
Sally Hansen (University of Notre Dame): “Stammering Sea, Re-writing Sacrifice: M. NourbeSe Philip’s Sangoma Poetics”
Pete Hoesing (Dakota State University and USD Sanford School of Medicine): “Ecologies of Well-being: Hearing Uganda Through Ritual Repertories”
Khristian Howard (Baylor University): Visual Art for “A Theology of Migration and Black Sacred Arts” panel
Tracey Hucks (the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study): Dialogic Keynote
Michelle Lewis (Duke Divinity School): “Water and Spirit: The Ecotheologies of Black Coastal Communities”
Mark Lomanno (University of Miami): “‘For the Song was Given Me’: Abbey Lincoln Conjures a More Wholly Earth”
Kameelah L. Martin (College of Charleston): “Conjure Feminism: The Root(work) of Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions”
Sibahle Ndwayana (University of California, Berkeley): “Caboverdianidade e Africanidade: Batuque’s ec(h)o poetics and maroon reverberations”
Dianne M. Stewart (the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Emory University): Dialogic Keynote
Steveen Ulysse (University of Glasgow): “Konesans soti anba dlo, a wet ontological approach to understanding Ginen’s positionality in the shaping of Vodou knowledge”
Samuel Umoh (University of Hradec Kralove Czech Republic): “The forbidden and Sacred Landscape of the gods in Nigeria”
Robert White (Freedom Church), and Ralph S. Emerson (Rising Star Baptist Church): “Growth from a Garden: A Biblical Discipleship Model through the Lens of the Soil”
Zainabu Jallo (University of Basel): “Abdias do Nascimento: Eco-Spirituality and Art”