Religious Afterlife: Race, Gender, and Religion among Black Undergraduates

The department of religion presents a lecture by Keon McGuire, assistant professor at Arizona State University, on Tuesday March 26 at 7 p.m. in Peabody Hall, room 115. The lecture, “Religious Afterlife: Race, Gender, and Religion among Black Undergraduates,” is part of the Religion and the Common Good seminar series and open to the public.

McGuire will discuss how narratives concerning institutional and organized religion’s declining significance in American life in general and among young adults specifically matter – or don’t – in the lives of Black undergraduate students. Through introducing the concept of religion’s afterlife, McGuire will share how higher education scholars and educators must move beyond conceptualizing the relationship between religion and lived experiences that correlate to professed commitments to religious dictates, and instead, examine religion as a socially constructed category that shapes how we see ourselves, others and the social worlds we occupy. 

Keon M. McGuire is an Assistant Professor of Higher and Postsecondary Education in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and a Faculty Affiliate with the School of Social Transformation. Dr. McGuire's research agenda focuses on the status and experiences of minoritized students across postsecondary educational settings. The lecture is supported by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.