Union seminary to host African Odyssey exhibit

Union Presbyterian Seminary will host a free exhibit and gallery talk exploring the history of the transatlantic slave trade, its resounding effects on Africans in the Americas, and its representation in literature and the humanities. The exhibit, titled African Odyssey, will feature photographs taken by Dr. Joanne M. Braxton, director of the College of William & Mary’s Middle Passage Project and its 1619 Initiative, during a visit to Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Senegal.

“I took the photos to support my written notes when I would later sit down to write a play about the survival of African people in the New World,” said Dr. Braxton. “And when I saw the pictures, I realized that they tell a story, a very personal story that explores the problem of memory in a way that I had neither anticipated nor expected. I want to share that story through the collection of photographs and hand-lettered captions that I now call African Odyssey.”

Sample photos from the exhibit can be viewed here (photo credit: Joanne M. Braxton).

The exhibit will be displayed at the seminary’s William Smith Morton Library and open to the public for viewing between February 15 and April 12, 2016. Dr. Braxton will present a free gallery talk about the exhibit in the library’s reserve reading room March 29 at 3 p.m.

“This exhibit raises timely, ethical and theological questions related to conversations about race and justice in today’s America,” said library director Christopher Richardson. “Union welcomes the opportunity to engage in those important conversations.”

Dr. Braxton, creator of the African Odyssey exhibit, is Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Middle Passage Project at the College of William & Mary. An ordained minister with full standing in the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ, Dr. Braxton is also 2016–17 David M. Larson Fellow in Spirituality and Health at the John W. Kluge Center at the United States Library of Congress, appointed by the Librarian of Congress. She is one of the authors of the United Church of Christ online “Honoring the Body” curriculum.

A recognized scholarly authority on Black Atlantic literature and culture, Dr. Braxton holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University, the M.T.S. from Pacific School of Religion and the M.Div. from Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University. She is the author or editor of several books, including “The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar” (1993), “Black Female Sexualities” (2015), “Black Women Writing Autobiography: A Tradition Within a Tradition” (1989), “Wild Women in the Whirlwind: the Contemporary Renaissance in Afra-American Literature and Culture” (1989) and “Monuments of the Black Atlantic: Slavery and Memory” (2004). She is also the author of “On Making and Keeping Rituals of Remembrance,” which offers further insight on the creation of the African Odyssey exhibit.

Dr. Braxton has been a visiting lecturer at Starr King School for the Ministry, Brite Divinity School and Eastern Virginia Medical School, among others. Her awards include the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia’s Outstanding Educator Award and a 2002 Oni Award from the International Black Women’s Congress “for uncompromising commitment to uplifting the lives of African people.” She is an elected member of the Society for the Study of Black Religion and serves as president of the Braxton Institute for Human Sustainability, Resiliency and Joy, a non-profit ministry of teaching and healing.