About the Conference

Tickets between $20–$40

About the Conference

One year on, we all still work, rest and move under the conditions of the global pandemic.

This implies no hindrance to our conference. A group of graduate students (identified below) are hosting a second installment of the interdisciplinary conference on the subject of Race and Ethnicity in Christian Origins and Theology during this window of time (October 1st - 4th). The idea for an event like this was discussed some time ago during an interdisciplinary reading group on Christology, but it remained only an exciting idea until AAR/SBL moved their event online, signaling that online discourse will likely be the modus operandi for academic gatherings for the foreseeable future. After that decision was announced on July 13th, 2020, it was determined that this idea could come to fruition in the form of an online conference, which has since grown far beyond our wildest imaginations. Since that date, we have enjoyed one fruitful conference and have made plans for the second conference this October.

With regard to the event itself, we are planning 8 book panels on recent publications around ethnicity and race, from biblical scholars, theologians, and philosophers. Each book panel will be composed of an interdisciplinary selection of around 4 world-leading scholars, most of which will be followed by a response from the author. .

This conference will also be unique in that the papers for the various book panels will be distributed to conference attendees in advance of the live event. The link to these essays may be found in the confirmation email sent out to registrants for the conference. Upon reading the papers, conference attendees will be given the opportunity to pre-submit questions for the panelists using a secure link. Additionally, rather than per usual (listening to 4–5 papers straight through), conference participants will instead get to experience a discussion amongst panelists who will first summarize, rather than read, their respective essays. This will not only help avoid the fatigue that arises from online video conferencing, but it will also make for a much more interesting event!

We want to keep a modest entrance fee for participants. Keep the anticipation live for when registration opens. Coming soon…

Note: All net proceeds will be directed toward transitioning this conference into an annual venture!

Use of the Conference Funds

With regard to the future, our hope is to plan similar conferences of this kind on an annual basis. If there is enough interest, we also hope to incorporate an annual lecture series with an invited lecturer. The idea, in other words, is to cultivate something of an online version of AAR/SBL (without membership fees!) that is far more affordable and (hopefully) quite interesting as well. The conference will not, however, be “competing” with AAR/SBL, as the events will not overlap with one another.