Underworld Workers:

Theorizing Race, Religion, and Sexuality in Jim Crow New Orleans 

 

with Dr. Ahmad Greene-Hayes

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How did Black communities in Jim Crow New Orleans transform everyday spaces into powerful centers of spiritual life?


When Zora Neale Hurston traveled to New Orleans, she encountered a religious underworld, a beautiful anarchy of spiritual life. In his new book Underworld Work: Black Atlantic Religion-Making in Jim Crow New Orleans, Harvard professor Ahmad Greene-Hayes follows Hurston on a journey through the rich tapestry of Black religious expression from emancipation through Jim Crow. Dr. Greene-Hayes looks within and beyond the church to recover the diverse leadership of migrants, healers, dissidents, and queer people who transformed their marginalized homes, bars, and street corners into sacred space. In this online webinar hosted by Dr. Andrew Henry, Dr. Greene-Hayes will give a talk based on his book, followed by a live Q&A with the audience.

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Your Instructor



Dr. Ahmad Greene-Hayes

 

Dr. Ahmad Greene-Hayes (he/him) is Associate Professor of African American Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and he is a member of the Standing Committee for the Study of Religion and the Standing Committee on Advanced Degrees in American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Dr. Greene-Hayes is an accomplished scholar, teacher, and mentor, and his research and teaching interests include 19th and 20th century African American religious history; race, sexuality, and religion in the Americas; interdisciplinary archive studies; and theories and methods in the study of religion and Black Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Religion with certificates in African American Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies from Princeton University, and his B.A. in History and Africana Studies, with highest honors, from Williams College. He has published essays in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Africana Religions, Nova Religio, GLQ, and the Journal of African American History, among others. 

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