From: <sar-l-bounces@PROTECTED> on behalf of Fatima Siwaju <fsiwaju@PROTECTED>
Date: Monday, December 4, 2017 at 12:01 PM
To: <sar-l@PROTECTED>
Subject: [SAR-List] Black Islam in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Symposium

Dear members of the Society of the  Anthropology of Religion, 

Black Islam in the Americas:

An Interdisciplinary Symposium 

February 16 - 18, 2018

This interdisciplinary symposium endeavors to foster critical dialogue on Black Islam in the Americas. While much discussion has taken place on Islam in the African American context and Islam in North America more generally, insufficient academic attention has been directed towards the Islamic trajectories of Afro-descendent peoples across the Americas more widely. This symposium therefore adopts a hemispheric approach to the study of Islam as experienced in Black communities in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.

One of the primary aims of the symposium is to unpack the notion of “Black Islam,” a provocative term that prompts us to contemplate the geographies and politics of Black Muslimness, which have been configured not only through diasporic connections between Africa and the Americas, but also through the socio-economic and political realities facing Afro-descendant populations in the American region. We look forward to an exploration of the potentialities of “Black Islam” as a conceptual apparatus that allows us to consider the “roots and routes” of Islamic doctrines, practices and cultures among Afro-descendant peoples in the Americas.

We therefore invite submissions from artists and researchers working in a range of academic disciplines (including Religion, Islamic Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Africana Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and American Studies among others) on the topic of Black Islam in the Americas. Potential areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to, the following:

- African and Muslim Diasporas