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KOSANBA Conference

KOSANBA 2019
Thursday, September 19, 2019
All Day

KOSANBA 2019
Ethics and Aesthetics: Vodou's Commitment to Activism and Change

This year's KOSANBA Colloquium hosted at Duke explores the ethical and artistic powers of Vodou and other Africana religions on a global level in the interest of social change. Similar to its many sister traditions, Vodou serves not simply as a spiritual practice, but also as a philosophy, a cultural orientation, and an ethical code of being in the world. In this age of globalization and digital connectivity, we seek to explore what the transmission of sacred knowledge will entail. As scholar-practitioners become more involved in the co-creation of knowledge, how do we determine the parameters of which knowledge can be shared with the public, either in personal exchanges or in online communities? In the interest of institution building, how might we envision Africana religions playing a key role in educating the next generation in the classroom, the temple, and the home? In view of the vibrant legacies of African and African Diasporic visual and performance traditions, we wish to investigate the changing roles of the artist as ritual makers and religious participants, considering how priests and priestesses serve as both art commissioners and creators.

We ask: what are the ethics of aesthetics in collecting, caring for, researching, and exhibiting/performing sacred art forms in private homes and public spaces?

Register here: https://www.cbsr.ucsb.edu/kosanba/events