Religions at the Crossroads: Africa’s Creative and Spiritual Heritage

Submit a proposal to the 2026 BSA conference in Ghana!
Victor Ehikhamenor BSA 2026

Artwork: Victor Ehikhamenor, Umogun 1, 2024.

From July 22-24, 2026, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music will hold the fifth annual Black Sacred Arts Conference in Ghana in collaboration with the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra. 
 
This conference seeks to bring together scholars, practitioners, performers, and community based religious leaders to explore the Black sacred arts and related spiritual expressivities through a critical re-appraisal of the formulation of the “triple” religious heritage of Africa, studying indigenous practices in various localities in Africa, as well as religious and spiritual movements such as Christianity and Islam whose history and legacies are within, and extend beyond the continent. The conference seeks both to interrogate and update research perspectives on these religious streams by studying their links to expressive culture, including music, visual arts, ritual and other modes of expression. Each of these religious streams are internally diverse, interacting among themselves as well as across religious and geographic boundaries. It is this complex movement of the Black sacred arts, this liminal space of religion at the crossroads, that is the focus of this conference. How have these various religious streams flowed together and split apart into new currents, new expressive means and new ways of engaging the sacred? What are the different epistemologies and ontologies—written, spoken, sung, danced, drummed, painted, carved, woven, and articulated through other modalities of sacred practice—that have informed this lived religious field? What are some new sites of evidence that explain religion and spirituality as lived, immanent and yet transcendent experience that interconnects the sacred and secular in the African quotidian? What are the dialogic exchanges between innovative religious-ritual manifestations, artistic imaginings, and performance practices? What is the legacy of the triple heritage in diasporic forms of the Black sacred arts?

Torgbui Gideon F. Alorwoyie

We are thrilled to announce that Torgbui Gideon F. Alorwoyie, professor of percussion and the principal dancer/choreographer and director of the African Percussion Ensemble at the University of North Texas, will be one of the keynote speakers. 

We invite proposals that address topics including, but not limited to:


    •    The triple heritage reimagined
    •    Ritual technologies: music, movement, and materiality
    •    The digital and the Divine
    •    Staging and performing sacred soundscapes 
    •    The entangled histories of religion, empire, colonialism and the arts
    •    Atlantic ebbs and flows: Africa and the diaspora in dialogue
    •    Festivals and the Sacred Arts
    •    Violence and resilience in Black sacred arts
    •    The long view and historical perspectives on the Black sacred arts
    •    The challenge of ethnography in (re)discovering the sacred in Africana religions
    •    Gendered embodiment, queer theologies, and feminist reimaginings of the sacred
    •    Divination and the Prophetic Arts
 
The conference will be conducted in person on the University of Ghana campus in Accra. To promote the participation of scholars, artists, and practitioners in Africa, the ISM will provide a $500 travel allowance for accepted presenters affiliated with African universities and situated in Africa. There will be a means to apply for this travel allowance in the application process. The travel allowance will be paid after the conference.
 
All accepted presenters—from Africa or abroad—will receive three nights of accommodations, free conference registration, and breakfast and lunch during the conference. Conference presenters from outside of Africa will have to cover their own travel to the conference site and all attendees will be responsible for securing their required visas and other requirements for entering Ghana.

Format


We welcome abstracts for individual papers and organized panels from advanced graduate students, faculty, scholars working outside the academy, and practitioners. Individual papers and presentations will be allotted 20 minutes apiece; organized panels may include 3-4 presenters. Abstracts should be approximately 300 words in length and accompanied by a 150-word bio or personal narrative. For an organized panel, please include the panel title, a panel abstract, and all individual abstracts compiled together as one submission. Abstracts in languages other than English are welcome but must be accompanied by an English translation. Presentations in languages other than English will also be welcome, but presenters should work with the conference organizers to determine a means of translation to English during the presentation.
 
We also invite proposals for alternative formats that incorporate interactive engagement with artistic and ritual phenomena, such as lecture-demonstrations, sonic activations, and listening and viewing sessions. Those interested in pursuing alternative presentational modalities should describe aspects of format and proposed length in their abstract. Performers’ abstracts may contain one URL for a multimedia supplement directly related to the presentation. 

How to submit abstracts

Abstracts should be submitted by January 10, 2026, at ismconferences.submittable.com. If submitting a proposal for an organized panel, the panel organizer or chair should upload a PDF containing the panel title and abstracts from all panel participants. Applicants will need to open a free account with Submittable before uploading abstracts. The following information for individual and panel proposals is requested:  

    •    Name
    •    Email
    •    Affiliation
    •    150-word bio or personal narrative
    •    Paper or panel title
    •    300-word panel and individual paper abstracts
 
Questions about the conference or abstract submission process may be directed to ismconferences@yale.edu. 

Timeline

Abstracts due: January 10, 2026
Acceptances announced: February 15, 2026
Schedule announced and conference registration opens: March 15, 2026

Program Committee

Daniel Avorgbedor, University of Ghana
Steven Friedson, University of North Texas
Cécile Fromont, Harvard University
Ruth S. Opara, Columbia University
Kyama Mugambi, Yale University
Moses Nii-Dortey, University of Ghana