Thursday, February 25, 4:30-6pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

• “Black Spirituality and the Creation of Spaces for Healing and Liberation,” with 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,” with 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 child-free black women’s prioritization of their personal needs with communal liberation. The second half of the talk illustrates how a reproductive justice orientation to child-rearing 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.

RSVP for this event by using this link.

Hosted by OSU Center for the Study of Religion.