2023 APRIL/Auburn Summer Colloquium

Andre Daughtry

André Daughtry

I am an interdisciplinary photography and media artist who uses social documentary photography, video and performance to investigate and disarticulate common sense notions surrounding religion, spiritual traditions and esoteric technologies’ roles in the civic sphere of contemporary pluralistic democracies. My work as a “speculative social documentarian” explores contemporary expressions/experiences of the spiritual, mystical and theological in the context of democratic political life. For five years I also served as the Minister of Arts at Judson Memorial Church in New York City which is recognized around the world as an incubator and home of innovation in conceptual art/performance, post-modern dance and off-off Broadway theater.

Oliva Espin

Oliva M. Espin

Emanuelle Rosa Ferraz

Emanuelle Rosa Ferraz

I am a museologist and, in addition to museums, I work in the field of performing and audiovisual arts. My entire area of work is focused on cultural themes, ethnic-racial relations, heritage and memory. Currently, I have been developing a work aimed at repairing memory, with the collection “Nosso Sagrado”: a collection of 519 pieces of Afro-Brazilian religions which were apprehended by the police in the last century. After 80 years of dispute, the police returned them to the community.

My participation in the colloquium will focus on exchanges with the other participants, in order to dialogue with the various experiences in the areas of memory, religion and social repair. From this meeting, I intend to associate these strategies in practice with my community and for the development of my master’s research. Based on the networks established in this colloquium, I hope to be able to elaborate a text in which I can discuss the themes of reparation and repatriation in the field of museology and ethnic-racial relations.

Ernesto Fiocchetto

Ernesto Fiocchetto

I am a sociologist from Argentina and a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Florida International University (FIU), where I earned a Master’s in Religious Studies and a Master’s in International Studies. My interests have centered on the configuration of religious identities. In different periods, I have focused on the intersections of religious identities and other topics, such as sexualities, women and politics in Latin America, information and communication technologies, and South American migrants and refugees. My current research revolves around the multiple intersections of gender and sexuality, religion, and international politics in forced-migration contexts. For my dissertation project, I am studying the agency of Faith Actors—including faith-based organizations, religious communities, and religious leaders—in the reception and integration of LGBTIQ+ Latin Americans claiming asylum in Spain and the US.

During the colloquium, I will be reflecting and writing about my theoretical approach to religion as a “chain of memory” and its implications for the asylum regime. I will also advance my fieldwork analysis based on such theoretical reflections.

Rita Hipólito

Rita Hipólito

I am Rita Hipólito, a Brazilian history teacher in public schools. I have been developing antiracist curriculum for more than 18 years. I have a master’s degree in Sociology, focused on Black Culture and Afro-Brazilian religions, specifically Candomblé. Although I have researched it for more than 20 years, it was only in 2019 that I became a member of that religion.

Last year, I was approved for a Professional Development Program and named a Humphrey Fellow. I am currently developing a project to prepare teachers in critical pedagogy based on the work of Paulo Freire and bell hooks, as ways of learning about minoritized religions including African Traditional Religion, African Diasporic Religion, and Indigenous religions.

During my time at the summer colloquium, I will work on the critical pedagogy project and hope to demonstrate the beauty and influence of Candomblé in the Brazilian Culture and to denounce some of the persecution we face in Brazil.

Rashida James-Saadiya

Rashida James-Saadiya

I am a writer, artist, and cultural studies scholar exploring the intersections of creative resistance, identity, kinship, and the role of faith and community care amongst Black Muslim women in the American South.

During the colloquium, I will conduct research for “Throwing Seeds,” a digital chronicle that highlights the Atlantic ocean as a memory archive and site of Diasporic consciousness in the lives of Black artists and cultural workers. The title of this project pays homage to women who braided rice and other grains into their children’s hair as a means of sustenance and survival during the Middle Passage. It utilizes art, literature, film, and storytelling to provoke conversations about navigating race, gender representation, spirituality, and the role of collective memory as a generational tool illustrating who Black people are, have been, and are becoming as a politics of freedom, agency, and future-making.

Nataliya Naskova Nikolova

Nataliya Naskova Nikolova

I am a researcher from Bulgaria with interests in activism in memory studies and oral history. Prior to this I was a political assistant at the European Parliament (Brussels). My educational background is in Political and Social Studies with degrees from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. I am currently pursuing my doctoral degree in youth public policies.

As a civic educator I work in educational practices focused on commemoration and collective memory in the cultural area. My research areas are focused on the history of science, immigration policies, human rights policies, and public policies about youth in a worldwide context. I was previously a curator of the Bulgaria-based “World Art and Memory Museum” with the support of Robert Bosch Foundation. My latest involvement is with the project “World War 2 Peace” and “Documenting Peace” within the Peace cluster of the Bosch Alumni Network.

During the APRIL/Auburn Colloquium I will be using the themes of postmemory, collective memory, and personal memory to reflect on my study on ”Memorials and Art – inclusive stories” and to intersect it with the dichotomy in the frameworks of ”memory and justice” in the context of Bulgaria. I hope to explore more frameworks on how trauma and memory nourish peace education.

Donovan Schaefer

Donovan Schaefer

I’m an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. My work has been focused on how we can better understand systems of power by taking emotion seriously. I’ve looked at the relationship between emotion and religion, race, science, and secularism in my previous works.

During the colloquium, I’m looking forward to conversations that will help me deepen my approach to my next project, on the emotional power of Confederate commemoration. I’m particularly interested in better understanding the way these monuments were deployed in an effort to selectively elevate some members of a society and marginalize and degrade others.

Tiffany Thompson

Tiffany Thompson

I’m a recording artist, singer, songwriter, experience designer, and Kintsugi instructor. When I sit down to write a song, memory is the fodder and flame of creation. Interestingly, my first-day job was as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. I worked at Langley on geopolitical issues during the day and played my songs at pubs and coffee houses in the evening. Slowly, I began to see that the intelligence I was most passionate about was soul-level, heart knowledge. The type of intelligence that music gives us language for—a universal language.

During the colloquium, I will research and develop how “sonic memorials” in religious life can lead people toward ethical action in the world today. For if a memorial is defined as “an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory,” then a song written about a specific event/person/place is a powerful means of reminding people anywhere in the world of the same thing.

Je-Shawna Wholley

Je-Shawna Wholley

Unapologetically Black and queer, I was born in North Carolina, radicalized in Atlanta, Georgia  and currently thriving in Chicago, IL. Currently I serve as the founder for the Earthseed Black Family Archive Project, a community project with the intention of healing through exploration, history and storytelling. Care and space making are at the center of my life’s work and I thrive best when I am learning, serving and collaborating within Black healing and liberation movements. Grounded in visionary fiction, Afrofuturism and Black feminist thought I attempt to engage the healing justice framework in a way that honors the legacy of black memory and cultural workers and the Black mamas that raised me.

My goal in the colloquium is to share the Earthseed Black Family Archive Project process as well as its findings to questions pertaining to memory, transgenerational healing and liberation. This multimedia, interactive, installation entitled Earthseed: a Container for Healing and Holding, will grapple with the process of creating a container that is strong enough to hold collective memory.