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Sovereignty and Strangeness Graduate Conference, October 19-21

October 11, 2018

Sovereignty and Strangeness, a graduate student conference presented by the Department of Religious Studies, aims to explore the constitutive relationship between sovereignty and that which is strange, queer, or illegible. How might the language of sovereignty be useful for thinking about power in religious or secular contexts when spiritual communities, charismatic individuals, and state institutions make claim to and perform supreme authority over populations and territories? And how might the language of strangeness help trace the disruptive potential of places, practices, and bodies that exceed the logic of sovereignty?

Such questions converge in talking about queer and trans* materialities, racialized cosmologies, gender troubles, cultic communities, and liberation theologies, to name just a few examples. This conference hopes to put two intellectual currents — studies of sovereignty and studies of strangeness — into conversation in ways that open these terms up to new and unexpected meanings.

The lineup that includes four graduate student panels, a screening of the film, I Am Not a Witch, and two keynotes:

  • Hierophanies of Resistance: A Meditation on Sovereignty and Strangeness in Three Movements
    Presented by:     Dr. Melissa Wilcox
    Friday, October 19 at 6:15 PM
  • A Sense of Strangeness: A Blackpentecostal Anepistemology of Mechanical Flesh
    Presented by: Dr. Ashon Crawley
    Saturday, October 20 at 5:30 PM 

 Click here to view full conference schedule. 

Please note: The Department of Religious studies will also be hosting a seminar-style professionalization workshop, facilitated by Dr. Crawley and Dr. Wilcox. This workshop will discuss how to turn conference papers into journal articles. A number of Northwestern graduate students sharing their work. As this workshop is meant primarily for Northwestern graduate students, it is not on the official schedule. Full information can viewed below:

Interested graduate students should contact Jeffrey Wheatley for more information.

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