On May 6, 2022, join students, faculty, and staff from across the University for “Say It Loud: Poets, Preachers, and the Politics of Black Faith,” an evening at the Miller Theatre hosted by Josef Sorett, Chair of the Department of Religion and Professor of Religion and of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. This event is in person and is co-sponsored by the Columbia Summer Session; the Henry Luce Foundation; the Columbia University Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice; the Columbia University Arts Initiative; Columbia University Life; the Columbia University African American and African Diaspora Studies Department; the Columbia University Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life; and the Columbia University Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities.
This in-person event will feature a combination of live performance and a conversation between Joshua Bennett, award-winning author and Professor of English at Dartmouth College; and Saul Williams, critically acclaimed musician, poet, and actor. They will discuss the history and cultural politics of the spoken word: examining the connections between black poetics and black preaching, religious tradition and the literary arts, and performance as a practice of freedom.
Professor Sorett, who directs the Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics, and Social Justice (CARSS) in addition to his role as Chair of the Religion Department, is an interdisciplinary scholar of religion and race in the Americas. Professor Sorett is teaching “Religion and the History of Hip Hop” during the 2022 Columbia Summer Session.
This event will be held in person at the Miller Theatre. RSVP by May 1.