Time after time while there in the pre-historic pre-computer library days, I wrote my name in the little check out cards. When I was there “back in the day,” I checked out a lot of books on African American religious history, which I was just then starting to study with my mentor Leon Litwack. When I was in graduate school, I hung out a lot at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, on a beautiful spot overlooking the Bay Area. Raboteau for creating this work of enduring significance, and for his subsequent career in exploring avenues of African American religious history.ĪLBERT RABOTEAU'S SLAVE RELIGION: A 30TH ANNIVERSARY RETROSPECTIVE Mostly, we all owe a debt of gratitude to Prof. Anyone who was there and has read this post, feel free to comment. I discussed historical issues remaining for further exploration, further detailed below.

Curtis Evans drew from his significant work on the history of the concept of 'black religion' and gave a religious studies perspective on Raboteau's book. Mark Noll (Notre Dame) and Dennis Dickerson (Vanderbilt) discussed theological issues in Raboteau's work. My comments below briefly mention the influence of newer work on the African diaspora, foreshadowed in Raboteau's work Jalane Schmidt of the University of Virginia spoke at length about this. Each presenter had a distinctly different set of comments.

As mentioned, there were five responses today to Raboteau's work. In all, it was a great day in Chicago, and we all have Phil Goff to thank for putting the session together.įor anyone's interest, I'm pasting in my commentary below. Professor Raboteau responded, characteristically thoughtfully and incisively, at the end, and the audience provided excellent questions and commentary. Younger, middle-aged (that would be me), and older scholars were represented. 5 panelists (including myself) were privileged to be able to reflect on the life and influence of Raboteau's classic work. Nonetheless, everyone present made it a great event, and I was thankful to be present and a participant. The Hilton Hotel provided us a malfunctioning microphone and a room about as unfriendly to dialogue as possible. I had the same warm feeling today at the session for the 30th anniversary of Albert Raboteau's Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South.Of course, anyone who knows this field will recognize that this is one of the seminal works in all of American religious history, its influence reaching down through (by now) generations of scholars. My friend Lauren Winner and others organized this wonderful event. Some years ago, several folks helped to organize a tribute to Donald Mathews's classic work Religion in the Old South at the 2002 SHA, on the 25th anniversary of its publication.

Albert raboteau slave religion