Come Celebrate "Spirit in the Dark" at Gavin Brown's enterprise (11.29 at 6pm)

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NEXT WEDNESDAY 

JOIN US FOR A CELEBRATION AND DISCUSSION OF JOSEF SORETT'S

SPIRIT IN THE DARK
A RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF RACIAL AESTHETICS

A DISCUSSION OF THE PLAY BETWEEN RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, 
AND THE BLACK LITERARY AND ARTISTIC IMAGINATION  

WITH  
KAMEELAH JANAN RASHEED 
AKWAEKE EMEZI 
OLA RONKE AKINMOWO 
JOSHUA BENNETT
DARNELL MOORE  
 

MODERATED BY 
ASHLEY JAMES  

LIVE MUSIC BY  
IMANI UZURI  
(VOCALIST, COMPOSER, CULTURAL WORKER)  

FOOD & WINE


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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29 
6 - 8 PM  

RSVP REQUIRED 
RSVP@GAVINBROWN.BIZ 

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439 WEST 127TH STREET 
NEW YORK, NY 10027  

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CO-PRESENTED BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES AND INSTITUTE FOR RELIGION, CULTURE, AND PUBLIC LIFE

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GAVINBROWN.BIZ 
 

This Wednesday: A Talk at New York University (October 25th at 6pm)

Please join me for a conversation on religion and the cultural politics of American popular music this Wednesday at 6pm The Torch Club at New York University. I'm looking forward to delivering this year's Lerner Lecture on Religion and Society for NYU's Religious Studies Program

Here is brief glimpse of some of what  we'll be talking about for the occasion:

. . .  the play between religion and popular music... 

. . . entanglements between evangelicalism and black culture in the United States since the 1970s... 

. . . the influences and exchanges between the genres of gospel, hip hop, and praise and worship music and track performances by a diverse range of artist... and

. . .  the interplay between religion, race, media, masculinity and the market in the contemporary moment...

COME THRU!!!!!

In doing so, we will consider a range of performances by a range of musicians, including Chance the Rapper, Kirk Franklin, Fred Hammond, Ron Kenoly, Lecrae, and many more . . .

Spirit in the Dark: Book Forum on The Immanent Frame

Yesterday the introduction to a forum on my book, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics, went live on The Book Blog of The Immanent Frame

I am, of course, excited to see my work featured in this space. Among other things, for the past decade The Immanent Frame has hosted forums on books by an incredible list of scholars, including the likes of Charles Taylor, Elizabeth Shakman-Hurd, Kathryn Lofton, Webb Keane, Brad Gregory, Courtney Bender and Robert Bellah --- to name just a few. I want to thank The Immanent Frame's Editorial Board for the invitation to host a forum on Spirit in the Dark, as well as to extend special gratitude to the editorial staff (Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Olivia Whitener) for all of the work that went into making it happen.

Please keep an eye out for the series of responses to Spirit in the Dark, which will be posted to The Immanent Frame  in the weeks ahead.

For now, what follows is an excerpt from my introduction to the forum and a link to the full essay on The Immanent Frame. It's a short "original" essay that attempts to situate Spirit in the Dark in relationship to a couple of key theoretical questions that lie behind my efforts to narrate African American religious and literary histories as a shared story. I found this task -- of writing something new about my own work -- to be surprisingly difficult; but that's a topic for another day.  For now, I hope that you find The Immanent Frame's forum to be a fruitful and interesting conversation about my book and the broader themes of religion, race and the arts around which Spirit in the Dark is organized.

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Spirit in the Dark—An introduction
I have written elsewhere about a set of contemporary experiences and observations—although now aged by roughly two decades—that provided the first sparks of interest in the questions that led to my first book, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics. Travels back and forth between church services, on one hand, and open mics and poetry readings, on the other, during the 1990s provided the initial impetus for my efforts to bring religion and literature in conversation in the form of the longer story that Spirit in the Dark narrates. Admittedly, the religious history of black letters from the 1920s to the early 1970s that I offer is colored by “presentist” concerns.

To state the matter differently, Spirit in the Dark grew out of my desire for a better historical understanding of how things—things religious and things literary—came to be the way they are. So another way to account for (rather than obscure) the play between past and present, the personal and the historical, in Spirit in the Dark is to acknowledge the kinds of theoretical questions that animate my study of religion and the arts in twentieth-century (black) America.

As I was moving through doctoral studies, immersing myself in the fields of African American literary/cultural history and American religious history, two specific intellectual developments captured my imagination. Just one year before I began my PhD . . .

To continue reading, go to The Immanent Frame.

Talking Hip Hop and Gospel Music on "Tell Me Something I Don't Know"

Last month I had the opportunity to serve as a contestant on the popular podcast, Tell Me Something I Don't Know (TMSIDK), hosted by Stephen Dubner (of Freakonomics fame) for episode focused on music. Below is a bit more about the show. My contribution -- which focuses on the turn to Gospel music by several prominent rappers (i.e. Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, Kendrick Lamar) -- to the show starts up right around 34:23...

Expert panelists for the evening are:
David Hajdu, music critic and writer, who has suffered an occupational hazard.
Faith Saliecomedian/journalist and writer, who has a 2-1 record as a wedding singer.
Danny Goldbergrecord executive and former famous-band manager, who pioneered fake news. Our real-time fact-checker is Dan Zanes, accompanied by his live band.

TODAY: In Conversation with Farah Jasmine Griffin at Book Culture (Thursday, April 20 @ 7pm)

Looking forward to this conversation about my book, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics, tonight with Farah Jasmine Griffin

If you happen to be in NYC, come up to Book Culture in Morningside Heights for what promises to be rich discussion of African American literature, American religious history, and all points between...

Upcoming Event: The Afterlives of Amazing Grace (April 10-11, 2017 @ Yale University))

PLEASE FORWARD TO INTERESTED PEOPLE!
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The Afterlives of Amazing Grace: Religion and the Making of Black Music in a Post-Soul Age
Tuesday, April 11 | 10:30 - 4:45 pm
ISM Great Hall
409 Prospect St., New Haven
Free; no tickets or reservations required
Organized by ISM Fellow Josef Sorett and Ambre Dromgoole, MAR ‘17

The daylong symposium offers an invitation to consider a bundle of questions associated with the entangled trajectories of contemporary Christianity and black popular music — from Gospel, to Praise and Worship, and Hip Hop — in the years since Aretha Franklin’s chart-topping album, Amazing Grace (1972). Bringing together academics, artists, journalists, and industry leaders for a one-day public dialogue at Yale University, we will consider developments—from the naming and overlap between different musical genres, the blurring of racial lines and blending of church traditions, and the emergence of new technologies and media forms—in Christian music, the cultural marketplace, and black churches in the post-Soul Era.

To set the longer historical context for this dialogue, we will begin the evening of April 10 by reflecting on the early years of Gospel music with a screening and discussion of the classic documentary Say Amen, Somebody (1982).
 
DAY 1: Film Screening
"Say Amen, Somebody"
Monday, April 10 @ 7:30 pm
Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.

DAY 2:
Tuesday, April 11 | 10:30 - 4:45 pm
Featuring a Keynote Lecture: Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University)
ISM Great Hall, 409 Prospect St.

Full schedule and more info here: The Afterlives of Amazing Grace

Beyond Stonewall Symposium at Princeton University

I'm looking forward to participating in a symposium on "New Histories of Religion and Sexuality" in America" this Saturday at Princeton University. The event is organized and hosted by Wallace Best and features two great new books: Anthony Petro's After the Wrath of God and Heather White's Reforming Sodom.

Here is the schedule for the day and, most importantly, its not too late to REGISTER HERE!!!!

Saturday March 11, 2017 – Lewis Library 120
8:30-9:30 Continental Breakfast and Registration
9:30-9:45 Opening Remarks- Wallace Best, Princeton University

9:45-11:45 First Panel: “Reforming Sodom” – Heather White
 Rebecca Davis, University of Delaware
 Gillian Frank, Princeton University
 Josef Sorett, Columbia University
Chair: Jessica Delgado, Princeton University

12:00-1:30 Lunch – Brush Gallery 

1:30-3:30 Second Panel: “After the Wrath of God” – Anthony Petro
 Bethany Moreton, Dartmouth College
 David Johnson, University of South Florida
 Lynne Gerber, Harvard University
Chair: Leslie Ribovich, Princeton University

3:30-4:15 Break 

4:15-6:00 Symposium Summary – Kathryn Lofton, Yale University

Spirit in the Dark featured on Religion Dispatches

Two days ago, on March 7, two pieces about my book were published on the popular religion website, Religion Dispatches. Thanks for the invitation, Evan Derkacz, and kudos on the great work that RD continues to publish!!!

The first is an interview, Poets and Preachers: How black Literature Blurs the Lines Between Sacred and Secular.

And the second is an excerpt -- "Religion and Gender Trouble in the Black Arts" -- from chapter 6 on the Spirit in the Dark, which focuses on Toni Cade Bambara's class 1970 anthology, The Black Woman, as an entry point into the how religion and gender converged in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Upcoming Event for "Spirit in the Dark" at Columbia University's Heyman Center

Celebrating Recent Work by Josef Sorett
New Books in the Arts & Sciences: Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics
The Heyman Center for the Humanities @ Columbia University, 2nd Fl Common Room
Thursday, February 23, 2017 @ 6:15pm

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Participants
Author: Josef Sorett, Associate Professor of Religion and African-American Studies, Columbia University
Discussant: Courtney Bender, Associate Professor, Department of Religion, Columbia University
Discussant: Robert Gooding-Williams, M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council, Professor of African-American Studies, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
Discussant: Barbara Dianne Savage, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought,University of Pennsylvania

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Registration: Free and open to the public; First come, first seated (No registration necessary)
Sponsors: Heyman Center for the HumanitiesSociety of Fellows in the Humanities, Dean of Humanities, Arts & Sciences, Dean of Social Science, Arts & Sciences, Department of Religion

Upcoming Lecture at Allen A.M.E. Church in Queens: Friday, February 17th at 7pm

I am looking forward to being in conversation with the Reverend Andrew Wilkes and helping the Micah 6:8 Social Justice Ministry of the Greater Allen Cathedral kick off its 2017 Liberation Weekend, with a discussion of my book, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics(and activism art, literature, politics, race, justice and so much more) this coming Friday evening at 7pm.

Upcoming Event at Gavin Brown's Enterprise in Harlem: Wednesday, February 15th at 6:30pm

I am looking forward to witnessing this performance (featuring Alicia Hall Moran) and moderating the dialogue that will follow it (with Onleilove Alston, Amy Butler, Serene Jones, and Lisbeth Melendez Rivera); as part of the month-long series, "Tomorrow is Still Ours Festival of Visionary Arts, Ideas and Activism," hosted at Gavin Brown's Enterprise in Harlem.