"Otherwise Possibilities": Womanist and Fugitive Thought in Conversation

HDS 2673 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

This course brings womanist theological thought and fugitive thinking into critical conversation. How might these frameworks interrogate, challenge, and illuminate one another? What “otherwise” possibilities emerge for understanding Black women’s lived realities? What might this conversation teach us about loss and grief, justice and freedom, hope and possibility? And what might it reveal about the significance of God and faith? These are among the questions we will explore together.

By examining what fugitivity offers womanist theology—and what womanist thought contributes to fugitive theory—this course engages the work of fugitive thinkers such as Tina Campt, Saidiya Hartman, and Christina Sharpe alongside womanist scholars including Delores Williams, Katie Cannon, and Emilie Townes. Grounding these theoretical frameworks in lived experiences, students will also engage Black literature, faith narratives, and other forms of storytelling shaped by Black women’s lives. Through these encounters, the course explores the ways Black women imagine and sustain life, faith, freedom, and hope that exceed “dominant” possibilities.