Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Unit
The Womanist Approaches to Religion & Society Unit welcomes papers that highlight one or more of the following topics:
Womanist Approaches to FUTURE/S: Envisioning the Future, and For Whom?
The Womanist Approaches Unit invites the exploration of envisioning future/s in its widest sense. The AAR Incoming President’s remarks on the theme, "FUTURE/S" states, "The future" is a contested idea that looms large in human traditions and functions diversely in the collective story of many cultures." Proposals can include papers, panels, literary, and artistic approaches to elucidate a critical lens. Amid the systemic and structurally marginalized communities of color, generational realities of disparities can be the impetus for collective determination to dignify a sense of being and becoming. To envision the future, and for whom - raises the urgency for communities of people to build a future where there is enough room and love for everybody.
Selected Topics
The Womanist Approaches Unit invites proposals that engage the selected topics in dialogue with womanist religious approaches and perspectives:
African Womanism Revisited: Opportunities and Tensions in African and African Diaspora perspectives
Contemporary debates within womanist thought invite renewed interrogation of its conceptual boundaries, particularly regarding its relevance and applicability to Black women’s contexts beyond African American lived experiences. As scholarship increasingly engages African indigenous religious traditions and the complex intersections of Christian and African spirituality across the continent and diaspora, this panel examines how interreligious expression, cultural hybridity, and intersectional identity formation inform and complicate womanism’s global trajectories. (Papers Panel)
Grace, Grit and Governance: Womanist Pathways to Thrive in Academic Preparation and Leadership Performance
Examine the multiplicity of ways that women experience the academy, from student scholars to faculty and administrative leadership, to consider what it means to be in community theologically and structurally while holding the authenticity of personal identity, faith values, career path goals to navigate the systemic “-isms.” (Papers Panel / Co-Sponsor: Women of Color Scholarship Teaching and Activism Unit)
Karen Baker-Fletcher's forthcoming publication Power, Resilience, and the Black Madonna: Mamie Till and Mary at the Foot of the Cross (WJK Press, 2026), and honoring her 30+ years of scholarship.
This session celebrates the remarkable scholarly, pedagogical, and creative contributions of Dr. Karen Baker-Fletcher over more than three decades as theologian, professor, mentor, poet, and author. Engaging her most recent publication on Mamie Till alongside her expansive body of work, panelists will reflect on the enduring influence of her womanist theological imagination and the transformative impact of her scholarship and mentorship within the academy and beyond. Dr. Karen Baker Fletcher will be a respondent. (Book Author Roundtable / Open Papers)
SINNERS: Ancestral Memory, Generational Storytelling & the Spiritual Imagination of Freedom
The film SINNERS, directed by Ryan Coogler, evokes rich theological and spiritual questions rooted in the African Diaspora experience. This panel invites womanist and interdisciplinary perspectives to explore how the film’s messaging on spiritual pathways link ancestral knowing with generational telling—illuminating past, present, and future quests for resilience, liberation, and communal flourishing. Papers may engage themes of memory, embodiment, intergenerational spirituality, and freedom as expressed through Black religious imagination and cinematic storytelling. (Invited Panel/Roundtable or Open Papers/ Co-sponsor: Black Theology Unit)
Over Our Heads and Sittin' on High: Womanist Spiritual Technologies, Afrofuturism, and the Sound of Sacred Imagination
Lisa Allen, Over My Head: The Power of Ancestral Music to Future the Black Church, and Melanie Hill, Colored Women Sittin' on High: Womanist Sermonic Practice in Literature and Music.
We invite papers reflecting on Allen's and /or Hill's texts to discuss the Womanist-Afrofuturist spiritual technologies of imagination, improvisation, and adaptability function through spiritual practices of liturgy, ritual, preaching, story, myth, Conjure, and time exploration to help communities envision themselves into generative, hope-filled futures. (Open Papers / Authors will be respondents/ Co-sponsor: Afro-American Religious History Unit)
Open Call for Papers
Womanist Approaches welcomes compelling papers that utilize womanist methodologies and engage womanist topics beyond the themes presented above.
This Unit provides a forum for religious scholarship that engages theoretical and methodological approaches that recognize the four-part definition of a Womanist as defined by Alice Walker. The expanded emphasis of womanist approaches to religion and society nurtures interdisciplinary scholarship, encourages interreligious dialogue, and seeks to engage scholars and practitioners in fields outside the study of religion. We are particularly concerned with fostering scholarship that bridges theory and practice and addresses public justice issues in religion and society.