When: Monday, 17 October 2022, 18:00
Where: online (click for access link or see below)
Lecturer: Jeroen Dewulf (Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley)
Moderation: Karin Liebhart (University of Vienna)
Abstract:
The historical development of Black Christianity in North America has long been studied as a blend of indigenous African and Anglo-Saxon Protestant elements. In this presentation, Jeroen Dewulf redirects the conversation by focusing on the enduring legacy of seventeenth-century Afro-Atlantic Catholics in the broader history of African American Christianity. With homelands in parts of Africa with historically strong Portuguese influence, such as the Cape Verde Islands, São Tomé, and Kongo, these Africans had developed their own variants of Catholicism that they would take with them to the Americas in the context of the transatlantic slave trade. Their impact upon the development of Black religious, social, and political activity in North America would be felt from the southern states as far north as what would become New York. Dewulf’s analysis focuses in particular on the importance of Black brotherhood practices and argues that these fraternal mutual-aid and burial society structures were critically important to the development and resilience of Black Christianity in America through periods of changing social conditions.
Access Link:
Please join the discussion via this Zoom link:
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/69997590482?pwd=OHorY3J0aHp1VENvcmlXVUZTMEN1Zz09
Meeting ID: 699 9759 0482
Passcode: 702606
