Online Program Book

Using a Black and Asian women peer learning experience as a narrative frame, this creative presentation explores the possibilities and challenges of women of color making a pedagogical home in the margin(s). Through vignette-based reflections, this presentation celebrates and critiques various embodied and margin-formed practices that carry gifts of knowledge and wisdom that are often unacknowledged in the formal academic context but that shape and form who we are, how we know, and what we are becoming. These practices bear witness to the legacies of our forebearers and point us toward pedagogies of care and solidarity for women of color. Inspired by bell hooks' notion of the margin as a site of resistance, creativity, power, and inclusion, we aim to inspire participants to re-member, embody, and reflect on their pedagogical formation and how teaching from, in, and for the margins might (re)energize their practice of theological education.

Our popular Interactive Workshop returns! We offer pairs of brief presentations (10 minutes) designed to stimulate substantive conversation on critical issues in Interreligious and Interfaith Studies and engagement. Our topics this year address: New Directions in the Field, Engaging the Senses, Pedagogies, Applied Contexts, and Interspirtuality.

Presentations unfold simultaneously at separate tables (and repeat), with attendees selecting the conversations in which they would like to participate. Our business meeting immediately follows the workshop.

What insights do the epigraphic sources reveal regarding the roles of female Buddhists, including monastics and laywomen, in the development of Buddhism during medieval China? The incorporation of epigraphy for studying Buddhism offers the potential for a radical re-envision of our understanding of Buddhist women from the Northern Wei (386–534 CE) to the Tang dynasty (619–907 CE). This panel seeks to employ innovative methodologies in interpreting epigraphy to unveil the social roles and religious practices of these Buddhist women, which were overlooked in mainstream Buddhist scriptures and historical records, providing fresh insights into gender studies within Chinese Buddhism. Additionally, this panel examines the dynamic interactions between Buddhism and indigenous religious traditions like Confucianism through the lives of Buddhist women. It addresses the challenges and conundrums encountered by analyzing specific cases and texts and illustrates how contemporary Buddhists reconcile the conflicts between Buddhism and Confucianism, achieving a harmonious coexistence.

This session highlights the research of scholars associated with the Manchester Wesley Research Centre.
The first presentation will focus on Charles Wesley’s role in Methodist community formation in Bristol through his letters. The equalitarian marriage of eighteenth-century Methodists John and Mary (née Bosanquet) Fletcher is the subject of the second presentation. The final presentation will explore Thomas Coke’s attitudes and relationships with people of African descent.

The panel “Violence, Nonviolence, and the Margin” examines the complex dynamics of power, resistance, and transformation within marginalized communities. Through diverse lenses of art, theology, documentary, and literature, the panelists explore how narratives of violence and nonviolence intersect at the margins of society, reshaping identities, reclaiming histories, and redefining theological and literary landscapes. The first paper examines the intersection of art and theology by juxtaposing Browder’s monument, “Mothers of Gynecology,” against Sims's monument. By analyzing Browder's work's aesthetic and activist dimensions, the paper highlights the power of art to challenge historical injustices and provoke theological reflection. This second paper discusses the emergence of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries Movement within the LGBTQ+ community, redefining the traditional Black church. Through the lens of a documentary filmmaker, the paper documents personal transformation and spiritual renewal and showcases how marginalized communities are reshaping religious landscapes on a global scale. This third paper reevaluates Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s novel The River Between and proposes him as an ethnographic writer through a fresh interpretation of his novelistic work. By examining the novel's historical and imaginative functions, the paper positions his work within broader discussions of religion, literature, and indigenous narratives, like Chinua Achebe and Mongo Beti.