# Event Details - **Event Name**: Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Talk with Biko Gray - **Event Start and End Date**: Wed, 04 Feb, 2026 at 05:00 pm – Wed, 04 Feb, 2026 at 07:00 pm - **Event Description**: Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Book Talk and Conversation with Biko Mandela Gray, Ph.D.About this EventBlack Lives Matter: Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Book Talk and Conversation withBiko Mandela Gray, PhDAssociate Professor in the Department of African American StudiesUniversity of HoustonWednesday, February 4, 2026Vanderbilt Divinity SchoolThe Space5:00 pmJoin us for a book talk and conversation with Dr. Biko Mandela Gray, associate professor in the Department of African American Studies and author of Black Life Matter: Blackness, Religion, and the Subject. This book talk will include a conversation and wider Q&A led by Ristina Gooden, PhD student in Homiletics and Liturgics, and Royal Todd, PhD student in Religion, Ethics, & Society with a light reception following.In Black Life Matter, Biko Mandela Gray offers a philosophical eulogy for Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, and Sandra Bland that attests to their irreducible significance in the face of unremitting police brutality. Gray employs a theoretical method he calls “sitting-with”—a philosophical practice of care that seeks to defend the dead and the living. He shows that the police who killed Stanley-Jones and Rice reduced them to their bodies in ways that turn black lives into tools that the state uses to justify its violence and existence. He outlines how Bland’s arrest and death reveal the affective resonances of blackness, and he contends that Sterling’s physical movement and speech before he was killed point to black flesh as unruly living matter that exceeds the constraints of the black body. These four black lives, Gray demonstrates, were more than the brutal violence enacted against them; they speak to a mode of life that cannot be fully captured by the brutal logics of antiblackness.This event is a collaboration by the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality and the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on Black Church Studies. https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events5/banners/6ed99710-f4bf-11f0-b1e4-475f0e34b788-rimg-w493-h740-dc2c2f32-gmir.jpg Dr. Biko Mandela Gray is an Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at University of Houston. As a philosopher of religion concerned about matters of ethics, Black life and death, and religion, his research and teaching are focused on the relationship between Black life, philosophy of religion, and political theology. He has published written or co-written two books: Black Life Matter (Duke University Press, 2022), Phenomenology of Black Spirit (Co-authored with Ryan Johnson, Edinburgh, 2022); and he's co-edited (along with Stephen Finley and Lori Latrice Martin) Religion of White Rage (Edinburgh, 2020). Beyond this, he's authored and co-authored numerous articles and book chapters that explore questions of ethics, political theology, and architecture through the lenses of Black critical theory and philosophy of religion. - **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/nashville/black-life-matter-blackness-religion-and-the-subject-talk-with-biko-gray/100001980403345718 - **Event Categories**: nonprofit, art, literary-art, black-lives-matter - **Interested Audience**: - total_interested_count: 0 ## Ticket Details - **Ticket Price Range**: min: 0, max: 0, currency: USD ## Event venue details - **city**: Nashville - **state**: TN - **country**: United States - **location**: Vanderbilt Divinity School - **lat**: 36.1466963 - **long**: -86.8007657 - **full address**: Vanderbilt Divinity School, 411 21st Ave. S., Nashville, United States ## Event gallery - **Alt text**: Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Talk with Biko Gray - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events6/banners/57805ab83caf8205021d2a6928b76f5a5253e2a71dffc1e0e7b09acc975daa80-rimg-w1200-h600-dc010000-gmir.jpg?v=1768776366 ## FAQs - **Q**: When and where is Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Talk with Biko Gray being held? - **A:** Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Talk with Biko Gray takes place on Wed, 04 Feb, 2026 at 05:00 pm to Wed, 04 Feb, 2026 at 07:00 pm at Vanderbilt Divinity School, 411 21st Ave. S., Nashville, United States. - **Q**: Who is organizing Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Talk with Biko Gray? - **A:** Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Talk with Biko Gray is organized by Vanderbilt Divinity School. ## Structured Data (JSON-LD) ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Event", "name": "Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Talk with Biko Gray", "image": "https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events6/banners/57805ab83caf8205021d2a6928b76f5a5253e2a71dffc1e0e7b09acc975daa80-rimg-w1200-h600-dc010000-gmir.jpg?v=1768776366", "startDate": "2026-02-04", "endDate": "2026-02-04", "url": "https://allevents.in/nashville/black-life-matter-blackness-religion-and-the-subject-talk-with-biko-gray/100001980403345718", "location": { "@type": "Place", "name": "Vanderbilt Divinity School", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "411 21st Ave. S.", "postalCode": "37040", "addressLocality": "Nashville", "addressRegion": "TN", "addressCountry": "US" }, "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": "36.1466963", "longitude": "-86.8007657" } }, "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode", "description": "Black Life Matter Blackness, Religion, and the Subject Book Talk and Conversation with Biko Mandela Gray, Ph.D.", "offers": [ { "@type": "AggregateOffer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-04-08", "availabilityEnds": "2026-02-04", "validFrom": "2026-04-08", "lowPrice": "0.00", "highPrice": "0.00", "price": "0.00", "url": "https://allevents.in/nashville/black-life-matter-blackness-religion-and-the-subject-talk-with-biko-gray/100001980403345718" }, { "@type": "Offer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-04-08", "availabilityEnds": "", "validFrom": "2026-04-08", "url": "https://allevents.in/nashville/black-life-matter-blackness-religion-and-the-subject-talk-with-biko-gray/100001980403345718", "price": 0, "name": "Registration" } ], "organizer": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Vanderbilt Divinity School", "url": "https://allevents.in/org/vanderbilt-divinity-school/22627708", "description": "Vanderbilt Divinity School is an interdenominational, ecumenical theological school located in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee.In a global and multi-religious world, the Divinity school seeks to fulfill the following objectives:• to engage in theological inquiry;• to help persons prepare for the practice of Christian ministry and public leadership;• to encourage personal and spiritual formation;• to prepare agents of social justice; and• to educate future scholars and teachers, locally and globally.The school is committed to active participation in the struggles of individuals and groups for a healthier, more just, more humane, and more ecologically wholesome world. 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