19/02/2026
CONCEPTIONS OF DIVINITY IN AFRICAN AND AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS
Online
Please circulate widely. Apologies for the multiple emails.
-------------------------------------------
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION – VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE
-------------------------------------------
CONCEPTIONS OF DIVINITY IN AFRICAN AND AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS
February 19, 2026 — 4:00 pm CET
Website: www.god-and-consciousness.com/round-tables#feb
Registration: god.and.consciousness@gmail.com
PARTICIPANTS
---------------------
- Bettina Schmidt, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK
- Emmanuel Ofuasia, University of Pretoria, South Africa
- Steven Engler, Mount Royal University, Canada
- José Eduardo Porcher, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (chair)
REGISTRATION
---------------
The roundtable will be held via Zoom as part of the LARA (Logic and Religion Association) Webinar Series. Registration is required in order to receive the access link. This can be done by sending an email to god.and.consciousness@gmail.com with the subject line “Roundtable February”, or directly through the LARA Webinar Series website: www.logicandreligion.com/webinars. Registration requests will be accepted until February 17.
ROUNDTABLE ABSTRACT
-------------------------
This virtual roundtable brings together scholars in a transatlantic dialogue exploring conceptions of divinity in African traditional religions (ATRs) and Afro-Brazilian religious traditions. Recent developments in African philosophy of religion have moved beyond classical theological frameworks to embrace understandings of divinity as relational, immanent, and contextually embedded—characteristics that offer productive parallels for understanding Afro-Brazilian cosmologies. Our discussion centers on fundamental questions: How do these traditions across the Atlantic conceptualize the divine and its relationship to nature, humanity, and spiritual hierarchies? What properties are attributed to divine beings, and how do concepts of relationality and entitology shape religious practice and belief? To what extent do these systems recognize personal dimensions in divinity, and how do they navigate questions of divine unity and multiplicity?
RESEARCH PROJECT
------------------------------
This event is part of the research project “Concepts of God and the Variety of Theisms in Indian Traditions”, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. The project is coordinated by Prof. Ricardo Silvestre and managed by the Brazilian Association for the Philosophy of Religion. Website: www.god-and-consciousness.com.
It is held in a collaboration with the project Spiritual Realities, Relationality, and Flourishing: Brazilian Contributions to Philosophy of Religion, led by Dr. Porcher and funded by the Global Philosophy of Religion Project 2. Website: https://jeporcher.com/project.