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Speakers 2025

  • Carolyn Ramzy

    Carolyn Ramzy

    Carleton University

    Dr. Carolyn Ramzy is an associate professor and ethnomusicologist at Carleton University. Her research focuses on Egyptian Christian popular music in Egypt and a quickly growing diaspora community in the U.S. and Canada. Specifically, she examines how Coptic music is gendered, as well as the discursive politics of the community’s Arabic religious songs in the lives of Coptic Orthodox women. Her current project explores women’s use of virtual spaces, such as Instagram to chat, sing, and mobilize around the genres that Orthodox women cannot lead in real life. She has published in EthnomusicologyEthnos, and the International Journal of Middle East Studies as well as for the US Library of Congress Music division. She is also the curator of the "Coptic Women Sing Too Project" on the American Religious Sounds Project, funded by Ohio and Michigan State University.   

  • Cristina Rocha

    Cristina Rocha

    Western Sydney University

    Cristina Rocha, FAHA, is a Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Religion and Society Research Cluster, Western Sydney University, Australia. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and co-edits the Journal of Global Buddhism and the Brill series Religion in the Americas. She was a fellow at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study (2021-2022) and President of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion (2018-2019). She held Visiting Research positions at Utrecht University, Kings College and Queen Mary College, University of London, CUNY Graduate Centre, and the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Her research focuses on the intersections of globalisation, religion and (im)mobilities. She is the author of Cool Christianity: Hillsong and the Fashioning of Cosmopolitan Identities (OUP 2024); the award-winning book John of God: The Globalization of Brazilian Faith Healing (OUP 2017); and Zen in Brazil: The Quest for Cosmopolitan Modernity (Hawaii UP, 2006), among other publications.

  • Imani Sanga

    Imani Sanga

    University of Dar es Salaam

    Imani Sanga is Professor of Music in the Department of Creative Arts at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He obtained his PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His research areas include popular music, church music, aesthetics, ethnomusicology, postcolonial theory and social identities. His publications have appeared in journals ranging from Ethnomusicology, Ethnomusicology Forum, and Yearbook for Traditional Music, to African Music, Popular Music Studies, Popular Music and Society, and International Review of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music, as well as from African Studies Review, African Identities, Journal of African Cultural Studies, and Journal of Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, to Critical Arts<, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, and Journal of Literary Studies. He is currently working on a book concerning the use of musical figures in Tanzanian Swahili literature. He is a recipient of research fellowships including African Scholars Program (2007), African Humanities Program (2009), National Humanities Center (2019-2020), African Virtual Affiliate Fellowship (for SPRING 2024) of the Kansas African Studies Center (KASC) and Wissenshaftskolleg zu Berlin – Institute for Advanced Study, WIKO (2024-2025). In addition, he is a choir conductors, composer and music arranger for choirs and instrumental ensembles.

  • Kate Williams

    Kate Williams

    GIA Publications

    Kate Williams is the Vice President of Sacred Music at GIA Publications, Inc. She holds a Bachelor of Music Composition degree from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois as well as a Masters of Arts in Liturgical Studies degree from Catholic Theological Union in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago where it was her privilege to study as a distinguished Bernardin Scholar. Kate is the editor of Gather—Fourth Edition, the latest edition of the nation’s most well-known hard-bound hymnal, as well as the editor of Of Womb and Tomb: Prayer in Time of Infertility, Miscarriage, and Stillbirth. Most recently, Kate was a co-editor of The Fire This Time: A Black Catholic Sourcebook

    She serves as workshop leader, consultant, and musician in the Archdiocese of Chicago and abroad, following a passion to serve in multicultural, multigenerational communities, while mentoring young voices and building bridges through music ministry.

  • Robert Beckford

    Robert Beckford

    University of Winchester

    Robert Beckford (PhD) is a scholar-activist whose work has significantly influenced the intersection of theology, 'race' and culture in Black religions of the Black Atlantic. His eight monographs, including Jesus is Dread: Black Theology and Black Culture in Britain (1998) and God of the Rahtid: Redeeming Rage (2003), have been instrumental in shaping this field. His most recent book, Decolonizing Contemporary Gospel Music Through Praxis: Handsworth Revolutions (2023), continues this trend.

    Beckford's influence is not limited to academia. He has produced over thirty television and radio documentaries. His most recent film, 'After the Flood: The Church, Slavery and Reconciliation' (2022), is a religious exploration of reparations. His most recent radio documentary, 'Should I change my name?' (2024), delves into the concept of reparations as self-repair in the Black Atlantic. Robert's versatility is further demonstrated in his production of black urban music, including the socio-political, contemporary gospel album, 'The Jamaican Bible Remix' (2017-19). His current theo-musicological project, a collaboration with worship leaders in Britain, the Caribbean and Africa to inscribe climate justice into worship songs. The first release, 'Everything is Yours' with Jake Isaacs, was released by Christian Aid in 2023.

    Beckford's impactful research projects have earned him several international awards. His accolades include a BAFTA (a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award), a Jamaica National Diaspora Award, a Pentecostal Scholars Award, and an African American Radio Network Award for Sustainability. Currently, Robert holds professorial roles in the UK and Holland and is the director of a new public theology project in South London, where he co-produces theology with diverse urban communities.