Attached to Paper Session
Meeting Preference
[Note for Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit: Art and Literature as Intervention]
THE RACIAL IMAGINATION & NEUROSCIENCE
The problem of racism is more than an issue of overt hatred of one group of people for another; it is an issue of the imagination. Beginning at an early age, we are taught through subtle and repeated exposure how we are to see the world. We are given narratives that help us recognize those who pose a threat as well as those who constitute our community. Of course, this way of seeing is not simply an assessment of reality. It is a sense of the world formed according to the imaginative lens that we have been given.
This, in part, explains why racial bias or diversity training continues to prove so ineffective. As much as we like to imagine ourselves as rational actors, the truth is that people are guided not so much by reasoned thought as their emotions – emotions that are themselves rooted within well-worn narratives full of established symbolic meaning (James K.A. Smith). It follows that when, in the context of racial bias training, we encounter information regarding race that fails to fit our given narratives or worldviews, we are naturally disinclined to accept it. After all, it is far easier to dismiss a new idea than to renegotiate how one sees and, in turn, navigates the world.
Put in neurological terms, the stories that we learn early in life create cognitive connections that allow us to associate certain emotions and meanings with certain people. These connections can be observed through the neuroimaging of the brain, specifically the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, when processing social information about one’s own racial group and that of another (Manfredi 2023). The neuropathways connecting prejudicial ideas with certain groups of people are often so well-established that even if one is consciously aligns with antiracist ideas this alignment is not necessarily reflected in one’s neuro-activity or, presumably, in one’s subconscious behavior. It is, here, at this neurological level that art enters the conversation.
NEUROAESTHETICS
Art has long been utilized by people of color to express and even bring healing to the wounds inflicted by racism. It also provides a means of self-articulation and self-assertion that can powerfully challenge the damaging effects of racial stereotypes. But what of art as a tool of reconciliation? What role might aesthetic experiences, including the act of creating, play in challenging the dominant racial imaginary that shapes how we see the world? And how might these encounters be understood pneumatologically?
Recent studies have shown that the aesthetic experiences can rewire our brains. They can weaken synapses and create connections. As neuroscientist and director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics Anjan Chatterjee notes, art can reshape the weight or meaning given to people, places, and things. It can prime and prompt new meaning making. Drawing upon research in neuroaesthetics, this paper considers more than the potential of art to address the negative effects of racial trauma, but, pushing beyond current literature, it entertains the possibility of art’s intervention into how prejudicial ways of thinking shape the brain. If it is true to say that the problem of race is a problem of the imagination, then art is a tool by which we might imagine something new, create fresh connections, establish a different narrative.
ART & THE MOVEMENT OF THE SPIRIT
The potentiality of art to open up generative space for thinking and relating differently can be understood within the theological framework of the pneumatology. The Spirit is marked by the divine oikonomia or holy order that colors the immanent Trinity. God is not only with and for the other within Godself, but also in God’s engagement with all that is not God. It is this quality of divine relationality that evokes authentic encounter, which time and time again results in the creation of something unexpected and new. We see this in the act of creation, in the constitution of Israel as a holy people, and most profoundly in the unexpected gift of Jesus and the marvel of the hypostatic union. We see this again in the work of the Spirit at Pentecost, who, through authentic encounter, engenders the creation of a new and unexpected community. Delightfully improvisational and often messy: the Spirit’s movement is present in our most meaningful aesthetic experiences, for, like the Spirit, art has a way of moving us beyond ourselves, beyond our expectations and comfortable boundaries, and toward significant encounter that can then give rise to something new – to a new narrative, to a new conception of family, to a way of seeing that moves us beyond our given racial imaginary.
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
Art has long been utilized by people of color to express and even bring healing to the wounds inflicted by racism. But what of art as a tool of reconciliation? What role might aesthetic experiences, including the act of creating, play in challenging the dominant racial imaginary that shapes how we see the world? And how might these encounters be understood pneumatologically? Art can rewire our brains, reshaping the weight or meaning given to people, places, and things. It can prime pathways for new meaning making. Drawing upon research in neuroaesthetics, this paper considers more than the potential of art to address the negative effects of racial trauma, but, pushing beyond current literature, it entertains the possibility of art’s intervention into how prejudicial ways of thinking shape the brain. Delightfully improvisational and often messy, meaningful aesthetic experiences, like the Spirit, have a way of moving us beyond ourselves, beyond our expectations and comfortable boundaries, and toward significant encounter that can then give rise to something new – to a new narrative, to a new conception of family, to a new way of seeing that moves us beyond our given racial imaginary.