Policy and Poetry: The African American Religious Imagination and Social Transformation скачать в хорошем качестве

Policy and Poetry: The African American Religious Imagination and Social Transformation

2018 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion November 18 Denver, Colorado African American religion has played an invaluable role in shaping public policy debates in the United States and abroad. A sobering truth, however, emerging from many social justice movements is that legislation cannot combat all dimensions of inequality and prejudice. Many manifestations of inequality and prejudice remain locked behind the steel doors of the most gated house—the human heart. Those doors are often pried open slowly by another persuasive dimension of African American religion—“poetry.” By poetry, we mean various aspirational, symbolic, and artistic expressions not limited by the sometimes deadening exactitude of “policy speak.” This interactive roundtable discussion, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for the Study of African American Religious Life, will feature diverse, religiously-inspired “poetic” performances. These performances will accentuate the significance of embodiment and aesthetics in the epistemologies and social change theories of Africana people. Eric Lewis Williams, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, presiding Panelists: Elonda Clay, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Jennifer S. Leath, Iliff School of Theology Vincent Stringer, Open Church of Maryland Brad Braxton, Smithsonian Institution Tef Poe, Hands Up United