KEYNOTE PRESENTERS

Amaryah Shaye Armstrong

Amaryah Shaye Armstrong received her bachelor degree in English Literature from Belmont University and her M.T.S degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She is currently completing a doctoral dissertation at Vanderbilt University. Amaryah’s primary focus is in the areas of political theology, continental philosophy of religion, and liberation theology. Her dissertation, “Blackness and the Problem of Belonging: Political Theological Readings of the Family” examines how 19th century black women’s domestic literature both extends and challenges gender’s elision in critiques of Christian supersession as the progenitor of racial peoplehood.

Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart is a theologian, philosopher and poet. He is currently Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies and Chair of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Virginia. Hart’s work epitomizes the theological turn in phenomenology. He has received multiple awards for his poetry, including the Christopher Brennan Award and the Grace Leven Prize for poetry twice. His most recent publication in the field of theology is Kingdoms of God, a manuscript in which he sketches a phenomenology of the Christ.

William Franke

William Franke  is Professor of Comparative Literature and Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University and Professor of Philosophy and Religions at the University of Macao (2013-16). He is a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung and has been Fulbright-University of Salzburg Distinguished Chair in Intercultural Theology and Study of Religions. Franke has written extensively on classical literature, poetry, and apoophatic thought in the western and eastern traditions. His most recent publication is Secular Scriptures: Modern Theological Poetics in the wake of Dante.

Closing Panel among Keynote Speakers