The 2019 YDS All School Conference is a 2-day conference - all day Friday, November 8th and Saturday, November 9th.
Responding to James Baldwin’s charge to “do our first works over,” our All School Conference at Yale Divinity School will convene this fall to reexamine how theologians and students can “make our words more adequate to our realities and imaginations of life, death, and God.” Through work inspired by Black Thought, Queerist Belongings, and Atheological Intersections, we entreat the entire Yale Divinity School community to reflect on the relevant applications of multi-faith practices through the hermeneutics of black queer theology.
The conference will be held on Friday, November 8th (2pm-6pm) to Saturday, November 9th (9:30am-5:30pm). The Community Life Committee will sponsor a dance party on Friday night at Gryphon (8pm-11pm). We encourage you to register by October 18th so that we may plan accordingly.
Our Keynote Speakers represent various journeys including atheological, Buddhist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Jewish, and Orisa/Lucumi traditions:
Dr. Amaryah Shaye Armstrong, Assistant Professor of Race in American Religion and Culture, Virginia Tech
Dr. Craig A. Ford, Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at St. Norbert College; YDS Alumnus
Dr. Renee L. Hill, Columbia University Community Scholar, Columbia University
We have invited dozens of YDS alumni to join this conversation with us and to facilitate our small groups. We anticipate a time of powerful sharing and networking that shall consider such questions posed by Professor Amaryah Shaye Armstrong in her article “Thinking Practice: Method, Pedagogy, Power and the Question of a Black Queer Theology” as:
What has to die in our theology in order for a black queer theology to live?
What kind of methods, pedagogies, and power in black queer theology are adequate to our imaginations of truth and justice and love?
What does it mean to both retool Christian theological material and displace Christianity as governing the terms in which a black queer theology can be done?
Instead of traditional forums and panels, we are convening young theologians and recent YDS alumni to engage in small group conversations with students that will investigate these topics and their applications within the academy and beyond YDS.
We invite the entire Divinity School community to visit https://campuspress.yale.edu/ydsallschool2019/ to familiarize themselves with the keynote speakers and alumni.
For additional questions, contact Dawn Jefferson, All School Conference Coordinator, at dawn.jefferson@yale.edu