Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Unit
Sisters in the Wilderness – Honoring the life and scholarly legacy of womanist theologian Delores Williams and the 30th Anniversary of Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist Godtalk (Orbis, 1993)
Our unit is arranging a co-sponsored panel with the Black Theology unit and Martin Luther and Global Lutheran Traditions, honoring the scholarly legacy of the late Delores Williams, a trailblazing womanist theologian. We recognize the significance of Williams’ works and particularly highlight the 30th Anniversary of the publication of Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist Godtalk. This is an invited panel with closed submissions.
Our units propose a panel focused on literature, poetry, orality, and archival sources related to African, African Diaspora, or Afro-American religions. Iconic texts from authors such as Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Gloria Anzaldua, and Gloria Naylor, among others, engage with faith, spirituality, embodiment, ancestrality, mourning, fellowship, borders/border crossings, and other issues, questions, and challenges. We invite papers that explore the power dynamics reflected in such texts, the provenance of the same, the benefits and challenges of working with these kinds of sources.
OPEN CALL
The Womanist Approaches to Religion & Society Unit welcomes papers that highlight one or more of the following topics:
- In recognition of the 2023 Annual Meeting location in San Antonio, Texas, engage the relationships between Hispanic/ Latinx/Chicano/a, and Black communities concerning intergenerational issues such as electoral politics, artistic expressions, leadership, activism, and religion
- Womanist Responses to the newest volume, Walking through the Valley: Womanist Explorations in the Spirit of Katie Geneva Cannon (Westminster John Knox Press, 2022), edited by Emilie Townes, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Alison Gise Johnson, and Angela Sims
- Comparative Africana Womanisms in conversation with African Diasporic, Global, and Interreligious Perspectives
- Black Women’s Visual Arts, Black Women’s Cultural Productions, Black Women’s Cultural Creations (e.g., Shonda Rhimes, Issa Rae, Lena Waithe, Regina King, Ava Duvernay), and Contemporary representations of Black women in film (e.g., WomanKing, Black Panther II: Wakanda Forever, Till, I Wanna Dance With Somebody), television (e.g., Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi, Abbott Elementary, The Chi), and theatre
- Black women’s Labor and Activism concerning climate change and environmental justice (in connection to the 2023 Presidential theme of the AAR Annual Meeting, “Labor of Hands”).
This Unit provides a forum for religious scholarship that engages theoretically and methodologically the four-part definition of a Womanist as defined by Alice Walker. We nurture interdisciplinary scholarship, encourage interfaith dialogue, and seek to engage scholars and practitioners in fields outside the study of religion. We are particularly concerned with fostering scholarship that bridges theory and practice and addresses issues of public policy in church and society.