Series editors Terrence L. Johnson, Jacob K. Olupona, and Dianne M. Stewart of the Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People book series invite you to a party to celebrate several books in the series.

Authors Yolanda Covington-Ward, Roberto Strongman, Todne Thomas, and Joseph R. Winters will open the event with readings from their books in the series, followed by a panel and time for audience questions.

You can find more information about the series and a complete list of books on dukeupress.edu. All books in the series are available for 40% off with discount code AFRREL40 until January 15, 2021.

This event is hosted by Duke University Press and is open to everyone; you do not need to be registered for the AAR/SBL Annual Meeting in order to attend.

About Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People

The book series examines the religious, cultural, and political expressions of African, African American, and African Caribbean traditions. Through transnational, cross-cultural, and multidisciplinary approaches to the study of religion, the series investigates the epistemic boundaries of continental and diasporic religious practices and thought and explores the diverse and distinct ways African-derived religions inform culture and politics. The series aims to establish a forum for imagining the centrality of Black religions in the formation of the “New World.”

Participants

Terrence L. Johnson is Associate Professor of Religion and Politics in the Department of Government, Georgetown University. He is the author of the forthcoming We Testify with Our Lives: How Religion Transformed Radical Thought From Black Power to Black Lives Matter (Columbia University Press, 2021), and is coauthor of the forthcoming Blacks and Jews: An Introduction to a Dialogue (Georgetown University Press, 2021) and of Tragic Soul-Life: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Moral Crisis Facing American Democracy (Oxford 2012). He is co-editor of the Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People series.

Jacob K. Olupona is Professor of African Religious Traditions and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University. He is the author of several books, including City of 201 Gods: Ilé-Ifè in Time, Space, and the Imagination (University of California Press, 2011) and most recently African Religions: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2014), and co-editor of the Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People series.

Dianne M. Stewart is Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies, Emory University. She is the author of Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience (Oxford University Press, 2005), Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage (Seal Press, 2020) and co-editor of the Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People series.

Yolanda Covington-Ward is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo (Duke University Press, 2016) and editor of Embodying Black Religions in Africa and Its Diasporas (forthcoming from Duke University Press, 2021).

Roberto Strongman is Associate Professor of Black Studies and Comparative Caribbean Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou (Duke University Press, 2019).

Todne Thomas is Assistant Professor of African American Religions, Harvard Divinity School, and Suzanne Young Murray Assistant Professor, Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is co-editor of New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties Across the Abrahamic Religions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and the author of Kincraft: The Making of Black Evangelical Sociality (forthcoming from Duke University Press, 2021).

Joseph R. Winters is the Alexander F. Hehmeyer Associate Professor of Religious Studies and African and African American Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress (Duke University Press, 2016).