News and Announcements:

The Episcopal Women's History Project promotes and encourages research, writing and publication in all matters related to the history of women in the Episcopal Church. To that end it has small grants of $250 to $500 available annually for research and travel. The deadline for the 2004 awards is May 15. These awards will be announced at the board meeting in Chicago in June. The application form and instructions for application can be found at http://www.geocities.com/EWHPhome. If there are any questions please address them to Canon Mary Sicilia, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Portland, OR ph. 503-478-1215 or maryrobin@aol.com

Papers and proposals are invited for an edited collection, "Sociological Perspectives on the Afro-Caribbean Religions." Papers which explore Afro-Caribbean practice within discourses of race, class, national identity, gender, and sexuality are especially welcome. This collection is still in the earliest stages of development; no publication timetable has been established yet. If interested, submit an abstract to Jeffery Dennis (jdennis@fau.edu) via email by June 1st, 2004.

Memory Breeze, a recent exhibition by Marianetta Porter at the Warren M. Robbins Center Gallery at the University of Michigan's School of Art and Design, examines and recreates a familiar icon of Southern black religion, the church fan. Porter explains, "Fans have been a ubiquitous presence in black churches for nearly a century. In their imagery as well as their texts, African American church fans reveal much about the past -- their uses as cultural icons as well as the history, meanings and social contexts attached to them. The "Memory Breeze" exhibition is a collection of intimate musings and remembrances inspired by these simple artifacts. They are poetic meditations in the form of text and imagery that reflect the impressions of childhood, church and everyday life in the black community. Created in collaboration with Susan Skarsgard, these contemporary interpretations pay homage to the original fans' typography, layout and use of visual imagery." For more information, contact Porter at: mptr@umich.edu.

Academic Positions:

The Department of Religion at Swarthmore College invites applications for a one-year leave replacement position in American Studies/American Religions for 2004-2005 (fall and spring). Responsibilities include teaching two courses in Women and Religion, Folk/Popular Religion and Popular Culture, African American religions and/or Religion in the United States. We seek candidates with an interdisciplinary background and strong teaching experience. Send dossiers and references no later than May 16, 2004 to Search Committee, Department of Religion, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081.Swarthmore College is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and Minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.

Recent and Forthcoming Books

African American Culture & History: The L.S. Alexander Gumby Collection of Negroiana: From holdings of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Columbia University (Thomson/Gale, 2004)

David H. Brown, Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion (Chicago, 2003).

Kamari Maxine Clark, Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities (Duke, 2004).

Cheryl J. Fish, Black and White Women's Travel Narratives: Antebellum Explorations (Florida, 2004).

David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton, 2003).

Henry Goldschmidt and Elizabeth McAlister, Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas (Oxford, 2004).

Kenneth S. Greenberg, ed., Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory (Oxford, 2003).

Elizabeth Elkin Grammer, Some Wild Visions: Autobiographies of Female Itinerant Evangelists in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford, 2003).

Jerma A. Jackson, Singing in my Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age (North Carolina, 2004).

Sylvester Johnson, The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American Christianity: Race, Heathens, and the People of God (Palgrave, 2004).

Peter C. Murray, Methodists and the Crucible of Race, 1930-1985 (Missouri, 2004).

Mark Newman, Divine Agitators: The Delta Ministry and Civil Rights in Mississippi (Georgia, 2004).

David M. O'Brien, Animal Sacrifice and Religious Freedom: Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (Kansas, 2004).

Peter J. Paris, John W. Cook, James Hudnut-Beumler, Laurence H. Mamiya, Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, Judith Weisenfeld, The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York (NYU, 2004).

Alton B. Pollard, How Long This Road: Race, Religion, and the Legacy of C. Eric Lincoln (Palgrave, 2003).

Raymond Sommerville, Jr., An Ex-Colored Church: Social Activism in the CME Church, 1870-1970 (Mercer, 2004).

Linda E. Thomas, ed., Living Stones in the Household of God: The Legacy and Future of Black Theology (Augsburg Fortress, 2003).

Martha Ward, Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau (Mississippi, 2004).

Clive Webb, Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights (Georgia, 2003).

Cornel West and Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., eds., African American Religious Thought: An Anthology (Westminster John Knox, 2004).

Dissertations

Edward J. Blum, "Gilded Crosses: Race, Religion, and the Re-forming of American Nationalism, 1865–1898," University of Kentucky, 2003.

Constance Carter, "A Degree Above: A Study of Translations of Qur'an 4:34; Exegesis on it, and its Influence on the Gender Position of African-American Muslim Women," Temple University, 2003.

Mark Stephen Giles, "Howard Thurman: A Spiritual Life in Higher Education," Indiana University, 2003.

Willie Jake Harrell, Jr., "To Bear the 'Slave's Heavy Cross': Religion and the Jeremiadic Tradition as Literary and Social Constructions in African-American Protest, 1760-1865," Wayne State University, 2003.

Felicia M. Miyakawa, "God Hop: The Music and Message of Five Percenter Rap," Indiana University, 2003.

Deborah Flemister Mullen, "Bound Together in Christ's Name? United Presbyterians and Racial Justice: 'The Angela Davis Affair,' 1967 to 1972," University of Chicago, 2003.

Roxanne Regina Reed, "Preaching and Piety: The Politics of Women's Voice in African-American Gospel Music with Special Attention to Gospel Music Pioneer Lucie E. Campbell," University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003.

Edward Jerome Robinson, "'Like Rats in a Trap': Samuel Robert Cassius and the 'Race Problem' in Churches of Christ," Mississippi State University, 2003.

Qiana Joelle Robinson-Whitted, "African-American Literature and the Crisis of Faith" (Walter White, Nella Larsen, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Ernest Gaines), Yale, 2003.

Linda Grace Scola, "One Mile Past the Railroad Tracks: Racial Relations, Segregation, and Reconciliation Within the Methodist Church," University of Florida, 2003.

Cynthia Taylor, "A. Philip Randolph and the Transformation of the Negro Church," Graduate Theological Union, 2003.

Articles

Roberta Gold, "The Black Jews of Harlem: Representation, Identity, and Race, 1920–1939," American Quarterly, 55 (June 2003), 179–225.

Charlotte A.Haller, "'And Made Us to Be a Kingdom': Race, Antislavery, and Black Evangelicals in North Carolina's Early Republic," North Carolina Historical Review, 80 (April 2003), 125–52.

Doug Seroff, "'A Voice in the Wilderness': The Fisk Jubilee Singers' Civil Rights Tours of 1879–1882," Popular Music and Society, 25 (Spring–Summer 2001), 131–77.

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