From May 12–14, 2025, scholars, artists, and practitioners came together at Yale’s Greenberg Conference Center for the fourth Black Sacred Arts Conference, hosted by the Institute of Sacred Music (ISM). This year’s theme, Centering the Black Sacred Arts: Research, Education, and Public Life, explored how integrating the Black Sacred Arts into academic and public spaces can reframe scholarship, pedagogy, and cultural understanding across disciplines.
Through lectures, panels, and performances, the conference addressed questions such as:
- How can centering the Black sacred arts reshape disciplinary boundaries and methodologies?
- What theological, philosophical, and cultural insights are revealed through Black expressive culture and religion?
- What has been lost by the historical exclusion of the Black sacred arts from institutional and educational settings?
Participants engaged in interdisciplinary conversations rooted in sonic, visual, and other sensory expressions that spanned religious, geographic, and social categories, illuminating new approaches to knowledge and scholarship. The gathering aimed to surface both novel insights and long-overlooked contributions of Black sacred arts within and beyond the academy.
Yale Conferences & Events was honored to support this important gathering by managing:
- Venue coordination at Greenberg Conference Center
- Catering and hospitality
- Travel, honorarium, and hotel arrangements for guests and speakers
- Shuttle and airport transportation
- Registration support via Cvent
- Design and printing of conference materials
Though registration is now closed, you can learn more about the conference and its focus by visiting the ISM website.
