The two-day symposium is an ongoing series that features work by young scholars who are invited to share their new research in African and African American studies. The aim is to highlight grounbreaking work in the field and broadly consider new directions that are shaping African American Studies. 

This year's symposium will explore how spirituality has influenced and infiltrated the lives of black people around the globe. The major queston gui8ding our discussion will be how does the spirit realm materialize in the everyday social and religious practices of black people in Africa and througout the diaspora. 

Friday schedule: 
10 to 10:30 a.m.
10:30 to 11 a.m. Jane Saffitz, University of California - Davis
"Mutation and Deliverance: Albinism Rights, Pentecostal Genetics, and Tanzania's war on Traditional Healing." 

11 to 11:30 a.m. Zebulon Dingley, University of Rochester. Talk title TBA

2:30 to 4 p.m. Keynote speaker: Tammy Kernodle, Miamia University. "Troubling the Water: Black Women, the Spiritual, and Black Postmodern Consciousness in the Cold War Era-American Concert Hall." 

4 p.m. Performance by Wardell Lewis, Gospel Pianist in honor of Dr. Paul Burgett