The 2025 Annual American Academy of Religion meeting will take place in Boston, Massachusetts on November 22–25.
The following are the planned meetings:
→ Friday, November 21, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Theme: Karl Barth and Black Theology: Retrospect and Prospect
Location: Sheraton, Liberty C (Second Floor)
Cambria Kaltwasser, Northwestern College, Orange City, presiding
This session interrogates the relationship between the work of Karl Barth and thinkers in the sphere of Black Theology. The panelists will look backward and forward, reflecting on key moments in years gone by and thinking generatively about scholarship in Barth studies and Black Theology in the years to come.
- Brandon Watson, University of Münster, “Toward Revolutionary Permanence: Assessing the Barthian Roots in Paul Lehmann and James Cone”
- Jason Evans, Princeton Theological Seminary, “What’s the Use? A Black Queer (Critical) Appreciation of Karl Barth”
→ Saturday, November 22, 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM
Theme: Karl Barth and Freedom
Location: Sheraton, Liberty B (Second Floor)
Paul Dafydd Jones, University of Virginia, presiding
This session reflects on Karl Barth and the AAR theme of freedom. Papers consider the meaning(s) of freedom—divine and creaturely—in Barth’s writings with both interpretive and constructive concerns in play.
- David McNutt, “‘You Are Responsible to No One and to Nothing’: Barth, Berdyaev, and Artistic Freedom’
- Lisa Powell, St. Ambrose University, “Mary’s Fiat: Freedom for Surrogacy?”
→ Monday, November 24, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Theme: The Politics of Redemption: A Conversation with M. Shawn Copeland
Location: Sheraton, Liberty B (Second Floor)
Cambria Kaltwasser, Northwestern College, Orange City, presiding
Paul Dafydd Jones, University of Virginia, presiding
This session, cosponsored by the Black Theology unit, the Karl Barth Society of North America, and Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society, focuses on M. Shawn Copeland’s book and engages key issues in Black theology, Womanist thought, and the topic of freedom. Panelists will include M. Shawn Copeland, Willie Jennings, and Andrea White.
- M. Shawn Copeland, Boston College (panelist)
- Willie Jennings, Yale Divinity School (respondent)
- Andrea C. White, Union Theological Seminary (respondent)