CONWAY, Ark. (April 6, 2017) – Hendrix College will host “Spiritual Pilgrimage as Time Travel: African Diaspora Tourism in Bahia,” a public lecture by Dr. Stephen Selka on Tuesday, April 11, at 6:30 p.m., in Mills B in the Mills Social Sciences Center.
The lecture, sponsored by the Hendrix Sociology and Anthropology Club, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Hendrix anthropology professor Dr. Stacey Schwartzkopf at 501-505-1507 or
schwartzkopf@hendrix.edu.
About
the Lecture
Anthropologist Dr. Stephen Selka explores the central role that Afro-Brazilian religion plays in the construction of Bahia, Brazil as a “living museum” and a “window into the past.” Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of chronotopes, he considers the ways that anthropologists,
religious practitioners, politicians and tourism promoters have framed Bahia as a place where Africa has been preserved more faithfully than in Africa itself. His talk focuses on contemporary African American “pilgrimages” to Bahia and to the Afro-Catholic Festival of Our Lady of the Good Death (A Festa de Nossa
Senhora da Boa Morte) in particular. Through these he explores the ways that African-American travelers simultaneously frame Bahia as a place where they can connect with their ancestral past and Brazil as an underdeveloped nation where Afro-Brazilians have yet to achieve the level of politicized
racial consciousness that African Americans have reached.
About
the Lecturer
Dr. Stephen Selka is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University. An anthropologist, his research is broadly concerned with religion in relation to other religions and in relation to projects that are not specifically religious, such as social activism,
tourism development, and heritage preservation. His first book, Religion
and the Politics of Ethnic Identity in Bahia, Brazil (University Press of Florida, 2007), investigates how Afro-Brazilians involved with different religious groups construct their ethnic identities and participate in the struggle against racism. It explores how Catholics, evangelicals, and Candomblé
practitioners assign radically different meanings to traditional Afro-Brazilian symbols and practices and differ widely in their approaches to questions about black identity.
About
Hendrix College
Hendrix College is a private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas. Founded in 1876 and affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884, Hendrix is featured in Colleges
That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges and is nationally recognized in numerous college guides, lists, and rankings for academic quality, community, innovation, and value. For more information, visit
www.hendrix.edu.