2024 Womanist Gathering at the American Academy of Religion

Womanist InGathering Description

The Womanist Approaches to Religion & Society Unit (“Unit”) maintains a significant purpose in centering the contributions of womanist scholarship and activism primarily by African Diaspora women. After four years, the womanist ingathering returns to the AAR program as a pre-conference session to encourage womanist voices in the academy amid the volatile societal dynamics of religio-politics wherein theological, ideological, and praxeological biases continue to undervalue and impede Black women’s scholarship and professional advancement. Therefore, the womanist ingathering represents an accessible “hush harbor” space for our fellowship before dispersing to the many sessions of AAR and SBL. The ingathering also provides a welcome space for emerging and seasoned scholar-practitioners to discern and discuss their analytical examinations and visionary proposals about Black Women’s roles in justice creation and spiritual restoration in the academy, faith communities, and the broader world. As part of our discursive sharing in the past, we have considered the ritual meaning of inviting ancestral presence to prayers and praxis and, in prior years, to celebrate one another's promotions, publications, and work-life milestones. This 2024 ingathering will include sharing on womanist mothering to consider the blessings and challenging particularities of parenting for women of color in the academy. This closely relates to shared considerations about the womanist ways of embodying leadership strategies to survive and thrive in our vocational call to roles in the academy as well as ordination, non-ordination, and leadership roles. Primarily, the aim of all womanist ingatherings is to "even" the field between seasoned and emerging womanists in an informal sacred space.

Schedule:

• Opening Ritual - Rev. Dr. Melva Sampson

• Tributes for Our Sisters

Dr. Barbara Holmes (Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman)

Dr. Gay Byron (Dr. Vanessa Lovelace)

Rev. Dr. Cecilia Bryant (Dr. Jennifer Leath)

Bishop Anny Byfield (Rev. Dr. Teresa Fry-Brown)

Panel #1:

The Motherhood Continuum:

50 Decades of Womanist Mothers Raising Their Daughters in Womanish Ways

Dr. Renita J. Weems • Rev. Dr. Annette Jones • Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas •

Dr. Candace M. Laughinghouse • Rev. Shantell Hinton-Hill

Panel #2:

“Honoring ‘Other Mothers’: Nana’s, Aunties, Big Mamas, Guardians, and Godmothers”

Responses and Culmination

Host or Publisher The Womanist Approaches to Religion and Life