Thank you to our workshop presenters and audience members for a lively and exciting discussion. To watch the recording of this event, please click here or on the workshop title below.
Religion, Healing, and the Movement for Black Lives
In conversation with Elise Edwards and Monique Moultrie
"Black Spirituality and the Creation of Spaces for Healing and Liberation"
Dr. Elise Edwards (Baylor University)
How might black spirituality inspire the design and construction of places for African Americans to flourish? This presentation describes spiritual principles in contemporary social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and their relevance to architecture and the built environment. Two principles--healing and liberation--offer inspiration for the development of public spaces and buildings that enrich and affirm African American life. Appealing to architectural projects like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, this presentation considers the possibilities of architecture to contribute to shared liberative goals from the Movement for Black Lives and African American religion.
Elise M. Edwards, PhD is an Assistant Professor in Religion at Baylor University. Her research is interdisciplinary, bridging theology, ethics, architectural theory, and urban studies to examine issues of civic engagement and the expression of Christian beliefs and commitments through art, architecture, and public space. Her scholarship focuses on cultural expressions by, for, and about women and marginalized communities.
"Trusting Black Women: Reproductive Justice as Black Liberation"
Dr. Monique Moultrie, Georgia State University
Using Black Lives Matter activists’ adoption of a reproductive justice framework to interrogate state power and structural inequalities, this presentation explores the moral possibilities of trusting black women’s decision-making. Reproductive justice as black liberation situates the right to not have children or to parent children in healthy, safe environments free from violence as a religious/moral imperative. In the first half of the presentation, I will connect childfree black women’s prioritization of their personal needs with communal liberation. The second half of the talk illustrates how a reproductive justice orientation to childrearing necessitates cultivating an environment where black life thrives.
Dr. Moultrie is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Georgia State University. Her scholarly interests include sexual ethics, African American religions, and gender and sexuality studies. Her book Passionate and Pious: Religious Media and Black Women’s Sexuality was published by Duke University Press, and she is currently working on a book on black lesbian religious leaders and ethical leadership.
If you require an accommodation, such as live captioning, to participate in this event, please contact Sarah Dove at dove.76@osu.edu. Requests made at least one week in advance of the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.
This event is supported by a grant from the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme.
