A Graduate Student Conference March 6-7, 2020
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DEATH a graduate student conference March 6-7, 2020 the crystal room alumnae hall 194 meeting street providence, r.i. 02906 keynote address: death, spirituality, and the matter of blackness joseph r. winters march 6th, 6pm the crystal room, alumnae hall 194 meeting st, providence, ri 02906 while there are significant differences between the respec- tive visions of black lives matter and afro-pessimism, this presentation contends that both are expressions of black spir- ituality. not reducible to a particular religious tradition or institution, black spirituality names practices and modes of care that have enabled blacks to subsist within anti-black arrangements and regimes. among other things, black spiritual- ity involves mourning, honoring the (socially) dead, and ac- knowledging the limits of grammar and human recognition. after developing an inchoate notion of black spirit in frederick douglass and harriet jacobs, i show how this idea illumines affinities between the movement for black lives and thinkers who insist on an antagonistic relationship between the human and blackness. joseph winters is the alexander f. hehmeyer associate pro- fessor of religious studies and african and african american studies at duke university. he also holds secondary positions in english and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. his interests lie at the intersection of black religious thought, african-american literature, and critical theory. friday march 6th 8:30am registration & continental breakfast (provided) 9:15am opening remarks stephen bush, associate professor of religious studies 9:30-11:15am panel 1 – death, materiality, and impersonality patrick magoffin, brown university, moderating jill j. tan, yale university shifting ontologies of the corpse in a buddhist funeral home emily theus, yale university bodied permeability and the threat/promise of annihilation alison renna, yale university bacterial intimacy and the symbiotic mind: the microbial humanities, charles taylor, rosi braidotti, and your intestinal flora on death in the era of the stomach ache stephen bush, associate professor of religious studies, responding 11:15am lunch 12:45-2:15pm panel 2 – representing death robert kashow, brown university, moderating jonathan wright, york university outside life inside the cinema: bazin and derrida on imaging death sam maclennan, queen’s university photographing stigmata: between retrospective medicine and personal devotion gabriella costa, yale divinity school & institute of sacred music “the surgeon of head, heart, and hand:” photographed gestures of care in dr. harvey cushing’s brain tumor registry andy archer, yale divinity school preparing to die: david wojnarowicz’s acta martyrum and the futurity of queer grief nathaniel berman, rahel varnhagen professor of international affairs, law, and modern culture and religious studies, responding 2:25-3:55pm panel 3 – the sounds of death noah tetenbaum, brown university, moderating codee spinner, university of pittsburgh sounds of the afterlife: exploring the acoustemologies of 19th-century spiritualism berit goetz, yale divinity school & institute of sacred music sufjan the secular psalmist: nostalgia and eschatological hope in carrie and lowell jared lindahl, visiting assistant professor of religious studies, responding 4:05-5:50pm panel 4 – commemorating the dead aseel azab, brown university, moderating renee cyr, university of kansas dancing with death: a performance analysis of contemporary american death rituals emily pierson, brown university until we meet again: nineteenth-century garden cemeteries and the shaping of the american afterlife k.c. mcconnell, harvard divinity school & tufts fletcher school “he was only a cat but he was human enough:” flexible personhood in the funerary rites of pets in twentieth- and twenty-first century america michael hammett, columbia university honor, funerary practices, and the death paradox in reformation germany daniel vaca, robert gale noyes assistant professor of humanities, responding 6:00pm keynote – “death, spirituality, and the matter of blackness” joseph winters, duke university 7:30pm dinner (provided) saturday march 7th 9am continental breakfast (provided) 9:30-11:15am panel 5 - death and normative responses to climate change lise miltner, brown university, moderating mac loftin, harvard university spiritual exercises for an age of climate death naomi madaras, union theological seminary sitting with the grotesque: a response to death-denial and the climate crisis kamryn wolf, union theological seminary the last diva: gaia worship in an age of ecological crisis tyler b. davis, baylor university death, disaster, and the politics of divine liberation mark cladis, brooke russell astor professor of humanities, responding 11:30am-1pm panel 6 - intimacies and epistemologies of death angel calvin, brown university, moderating joanna sierks smith, university of north carolina, chapel hill sacred slaughter: hog-killings in the american south sacelia strong-sangster, western michigan university a place for the ancestors: soul dualism and the anishinabe spirit land ben szoller, university of waterloo the death (and life) of the rural catholic church: examining the amazon synod’s case for biological and epistemological diversity jae han, assistant professor of religious studies, responding 1pm lunch 2:15-3:45pm panel 7 - death, praxis, ritual theory michael payne, brown university, moderating nicolas sarian, columbia university luxury, sacrifice, and the sacred: a bataillean meditation kate hoeting, harvard divinity school abortion as death: what religious studies can bring to pro-choice discourse greg church, johns hopkins university ritualizing justice: defilement, death, and social responsibility in numbers 35 susan ashbrook harvey, willard prescott and annie mcclelland smith professor of religion and history, responding 4:00pm closing remarks joseph winters, duke university participant bios: andy archer andy is master of divinity candidate at yale divinity school, an artist, and a community or- ganizer. broadly speaking, their work responds to the formation of precarious bodies and sub- jects under capitalism, and their research interests include affect theory, psychoanalysis, queer and gender studies, film and media, finance, and addiction. before attending yds, andy worked as studio director to the artist carolee schneeman. they currently serve as a chaplain in a long-term skilled nursing facility for people with hiv/aids. greg church greg church is a phd candidate in hebrew bible and northwest semitics at the johns hopkins university. his research interests are focused on the intersections and social functions of law and ritual in the hebrew bible and ancient near east. greg’s dissertation work focuses specifically on the defilement of the land in the hebrew bible. in his free time, greg enjoys cooking and baking, hiking, and spending time with family and friends. gabriella costa gabriella costa is a master’s student in religion and the visual arts at the yale institute of sacred music and yale divinity school. she graduated from fordham university with a ba in art history and english. her research focuses on the arts as a commemorative space in the 20th century. gabriella is particularly interested in ethical ideas of responsibility to the suffering and the dead. her recent work considers the visual dimensions of this obligation to the other person. renee cyr renee cyr is a second-year ma student in religious studies at the university of kansas. her research examines the performativity of contemporary american death rituals. her secondary area of research is the rise of wicca and witchcraft in the u.s. she has worked as an inde- pendent theatre artist and continues to weave practice into her academic pursuits. previously she completed a masters in theatre and performance studies from the university of maryland, college park. tyler b. davis tyler davis is a phd candidate in religion at baylor university. his recent publications include “in the hope that they can make their own future: james h. cone and the third world,” a co-authored article focusing on the internationalist vision of james cone. located at the intersection of ethics, liberation theology, and the black radical tradition, his disserta- tion research investigates how theological interpretations of the weather and environmental crises diagnose power relations and carry freedom dreams. berit goetz berit goetz is a songwriter and musician pursuing an mar in music & religion at yale divinity school and yale’s interdisciplinary institute of sacred music. her scholarship considers ideology in music; the resources of “secular” artworks for spiritual formation; and the re- lationship between text and sound. she earned her ba cum laude in music history, theory and composition, with a double-major in comparative literature, at brown university. michael hammett michael hammett is a doctoral candidate in the religion program at columbia university. his research focus is reformation-era christianity, and his dissertation focuses on late medieval and early modern christian demonological narratives of the transformation of people into animals. he holds a bachelor of arts with distinction in history from duke university, a master of letters in reformation studies from the university of st andrews, and a master of arts in religion and master of philosophy in religion from columbia university. his research at st andrews focused on notions of honor and their impact on burial practices