To simplify registration, if  you would like to  participate in all classes without the concert, resiter here.

This is going to be quite an exciting year!

This year's series is full of great learning opportunities. If you would like to participate in all of our classes, register here for all classes.

Friday, October 3 and Monday, October 6

The Caribbean is a zone of remarkable religious diversity, characterized by creative responses to, and negotiations of, a history of colonial conquest, slavery and foreign exploitation. This class will offer a broad survey of Caribbean history and culture as well as the first encounters between indigenous Taino and Carib peoples and Spanish conquerors. It will address the Catholic theological debates on the status of indigenous peoples and Spanish economic interests fueling the rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The class will review three major case studies, including: the rise of Rastafari in Jamaica; the political use of Haitian Vodou and its role in the Haitian Revolution; and on contemporary Puerto Rico (the world’s oldest colony) and its range of cultural protests under a religious framework. Despite histories of oppression and marginalization, one will be reminded of the irrepressible human spirit expressed in rituals, music and dance towards visions of a more ideal reality.

Spencer Dew is an associate teaching professor in the departments of Comparative Studies and African American and African Studies at OSU.  He serves as short reviews editor for "Religious Studies Review," and is the author, most recently, of "The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali,” the winner of the 2020 Raboteau Prize for Best Book in Africana Religions.

Marion Ramirez, a Puerto Rican dance artist, is immersed in the practice and pedagogy of somatics (dance as a tool for experiencing bodily agency, empathy and community building). Her movement research and choreographic work is informed by her diversity of dance training and performance experience in Puerto Rican experimental dance, flamenco, salsa, contemporary dance, ballet and contact improvisation, with extended residencies in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Europe, South Korea, and the US. She holds a BFA from The Laban Center, London and an MFA at Temple University.