Keynote speakers announced for 2025 Black Sacred Arts conference at Yale

Dr. Kyrah Malika Daniels and Dr.Jacob K. Olupona will be the keynote speakers at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s fourth Black Sacred Arts conference in May 2025. Dr. Daniels is assistant professor of African American studies at Emory University, and Dr. Olupona is professor of African and African American studies at Harvard University and professor of African religion at Harvard Divinity School. 

“Centering the Black Sacred Arts: Research, Education, and Public Life” will convene scholars and artists to consider the theoretical and practical work of centering the Black sacred arts in the academy and beyond. It will explore ways to incorporate the study and practice of the Black sacred arts in curricula and public life with the aim of uncovering new methodologies, epistemologies and pedagogies offered through their study. 

Learn more and submit a proposal before December 15. 

The conference will address questions such as: How does centering the Black sacred arts in disciplinary discussions push various fields of study to imagine new theoretical paradigms and methodologies? What are some of the theological and philosophical approaches that are uncovered through the study of Black expressive culture and religion? And what can be gleaned when the Black sacred arts become the heuristic? 

The conference will further seek out research and case studies that illustrate the profound losses that have accompanied the exclusion of the Black sacred arts in educational and institutional settings. The interdisciplinary conversations we hope will emerge from this conference will discover novel terrain through centering the Black sacred arts in discussions of sonic, visual, and other sensoria that cut across religious, geographic, or social categories throughout Africa and beyond.

Accepted presenters and performers will receive an honorarium of $250 to help defray the cost of travel to New Haven. In addition, they will be provided with hotel accommodations and several meals at the conference.