Judith Weisenfeld, the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University, will deliver the lecture, “Spiritual Madness: American Psychiatry, Race and Black Religions,” for the 2022 installment of the Loy. H. Witherspoon Lecture in Religious Studies. This annual event, presented by the Department of Religious Studies, will be a virtual presentation at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 3. Register for this free talk.
Weisenfeld argues the diagnosis of insanity was routinely used to deprive African Americans of their freedom following Emancipation. These authoritative judgments were based on assumptions made about African American spiritual practices at the time, which included incantations, making potions or displaying talismans for protection and healing.
The researcher will contrast traditionally accepted religious practices with those deemed to be morally impoverished or indicative of mental imbalance and the effects that had on society. She also will examine how these disparities persist today but in the context of 21st century issues such as COVID-19 and American medicine in general.
Weisenfeld is the author of several publications, including “New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration,” which won the 2017 Albert J. Raboteau Book Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions. She is the editor of Religion & American Culture and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Africana Religions and American Religion. In addition, she founded and edited The North Star: A Journal of African-American Religious History.
The Loy H. Witherspoon Lecture in Religious Studies, the oldest and most prestigious endowed lecture series at UNC Charlotte, was established in 1984 to honor the distinguished career and service of its namesake, the first chair of the Department of Religious Studies at UNC Charlotte. Witherspoon was professor emeritus of philosophy and religion when he died Jan. 15, 2017.