Conference Schedule

Ritual Transformations of Consciousness Schedule

Greenberg Conference Center, Yale University
391 Prospect St., New Haven

see map

Monday, May 15, 2023

Afternoon

1:00 – 1:30 | Arrival and Check-in

1:30 - 1:35 | Welcome Martin Jean, Director of the ISM

1:35 – 3:05 | Vocality, Transformation and Ritual Mounting in Haitian Vodou (Dining Room)

  • Elizabeth McAlister, “Creolophone Women’s Fugitive Speech: Bizango hums and vocal transformations”
  • Hillel Horacio Athias-Robles, “Doubt and the Displacement of Consciousness in Mounting Across Africana Religions”
  • Collin Edouard, “The Memories Within our Voices: A Theoretical Approach to Vocality & Ritual Mounting in Haitian Vodou”
  • Ambre Dromgoole, Chair

3:05 – 3:30 | Coffee Break

3:30 – 5:00 | Pan-African Perspectives on Material Culture, Ritual and Trance (Dining Room)

  • Richard Jankowsky, “Affordances and Ambiguities of Ritual Repair and Transformations of Consciousness in North Africa”
  • Allen Roberts, “A Congolese Furtum Sacrum: Mystical Trajectories of a Mission Madonna” (Zoom)
  • Deborah Kapchan, “Possessed by Possession: The Play of Paradox”
  • Jon Bullock, Chair

5:00 – 6:00 | Opening Reception (Foyer/Patio)

Dinner on your own. There will be a reservation sign-up form to group conference attendees at downtown restaurants.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Morning

9:00 – 10:00 | Continental Breakfast (Upper Lobby)

10:00 – 11:00 | Dialogic Keynote I (Dining Room) - The Drum and the AR-15: From the Church of Music to the Cult of the Gun

  • Steven Friedson
  • J. Lorand Matory
  • Elyan Hill, Moderator

11:00 – 11:15 | Morning Break

11:15 – 12:45 | Afro-Caribbean Dance, Drum, and Song in Ritual and Religious Contexts (Amphitheatre)

  • Michael Iyanaga - “When Caboclos Sing Catholic Sambas: Reimagining the African Religious Legacy in Bahia, Brazil” (Zoom)
  • Helmar Kurz – “Afro-Brazilian Ritual Performance: An Alternative Modernity” (Zoom)
  • Zainabu Jallo, “Dialectics of a Rooted Diaspora”
  • Jeremiah Lockwood, Chair

Afternoon

12:45 – 2:00 | Lunch (Dining Room)

2:00 – 3:30 | Dance, Trance, and Sacraments in the Black Church (Amphitheatre) 

  • Brendan Thornton, “Travel & Trance: A Phenomenology of Transcendental Pilgrimage in the Spiritual Baptist Faith”
  • Corwin Malcolm Davis, “In a Nobler, Sweeter Song: Black Protestant Sacraments and Ritualized Temporalities”
  • Clare Byrne, “Human/Divine Choreography: Dance Ministry in the A.M.E. Church”
  • Nedelka Prescod, Chair

3:30 – 4:00 | Coffee Break (Upper Lobby)

4:00 – 5:00  | Standalone Performance-Demonstration (Dining Room)

  • Mojuba Dance Collective & Imamou Lele Dance and Drum Ensemble

Dinner on your own. There will be a reservation sign-up form to group conference attendees at downtown restaurants.

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Morning

9:00 – 10:00 | Continental Breakfast (Upper Lobby)

10:00 – 11:00 | Dialogic Keynote II -  Sonic Consciousness at the Crossroads (Dining Room)

  • Rhon Manigault-Bryant
  • Michael Veal
  • Melvin Butler, Moderator

11:00 – 11:15 | Morning Break

11:15 – 12:45 | Roundtable: Sounding/Voicing/Embodying Blackness in the Early Modern Iberian World (Amphitheatre)

  • Cesar Favila
  • Ireri Chávez Bárcenas
  • Bernard Gordillo Brockmann (Chair)
  • Nicholas Jones

Afternoon

12:45 – 1:45 | Lunch (Dining Room)

1:45 – 3:15 | New Approaches in the Black Sacred Arts (Amphitheatre)

  • J. Christian Greer, “The Mothership Connection: The Afro-Centric Psychedelicism of Parliament Funkadelic” (Zoom)
  • Juan Suárez Ontaneda, “‘El nazareno me dijo’: The Musical Hagiography of Ismael Rivera”
  • Viktor L. Givens, “The vernacular sublime”
  • Ronald Jenkins, Chair

3:45 – 4:00 | Coffee Break (Upper Lobby)

4:00 –5:00 | Concluding Discussions (Amphitheatre)

Dinner on your own. There will be a reservation sign-up form to group conference attendees at downtown restaurants.

Departures