Dr. Amaryah Shaye Armstrong
Assistant Professor of Race in American Religion and Culture
Amaryah Shaye Armstrong received her bachelor degree in English Literature from Belmont University and her M.T.S degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She has recently completed a doctoral dissertation at Vanderbilt University and is presently an Assistant Professor of Race in American Religion and Culture at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Amaryah’s primary focus is in the areas of political theology, continental philosophy of religion, and liberation theology. Her dissertation, “Blackness and the Problem of Belonging: Political Theological Readings of the Family” examines how 19th century black women’s domestic literature both extends and challenges gender’s elision in critiques of Christian supersession as the progenitor of racial peoplehood.
Keynote: “Hagar’s Children: Anti-blackness and the Reproduction of Christian Order”
Friday @ 2:30pm
Dr. Craig A. Ford
Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies
YDS Alumnus
Craig A. Ford, Jr., is currently the Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at St. Norbert College. Previously, he served as a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Fordham University after having graduated with his Ph.D. from the Theology Department at Boston College and earning his M.Div. from Yale Divinity School. Dr. Ford writes at the intersection of critical theory (including queer and critical race theory) and the Catholic moral tradition. His dissertation was entitled “Foundations of a Queer Natural Law.”
Keynote: “Doing Our First Works Over: Sketches of a Black Queer Ethics”
Saturday @ 1:15pm
Renée L. Hill is an independent scholar, teacher, spiritual and community leader. Her scholarship focuses on world religions, feminist theory, African American history and LGBTQI studies. Renée has a B.A. in Political Science, and an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary in New York. She has taught in both community settings and in academic institutions including the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, Drew University Theological School (N.J.) and the New School University. She is currently pursuing a three-year term as a Columbia University Community Scholar where she is pursuing a project entitled, “The Spiritual Landscapes of Harlem.”
Keynote: “Which ‘Me’ Will Survive All These Liberations?”
Saturday @ 9:30am