UU Studies Network Convocation 2025: Expanding the Boundaries of Unitarian Universalist Studies
Theme: “Expanding the Boundaries of Unitarian Universalist Studies”
Location and Date: November 6-9, 2025 in Charlotte, NC
Scholarship on Unitarian Universalism has focused primarily on white elite men in the Northeast or the Midwest and the field has been dominated by historians and theologians. This conference seeks to move beyond the traditional subjects of Unitarian Universalist scholarship and expand the geographical, thematic, and chronological scope of the field. The 2023 UUSN Convocation sought to widen the circle and this Convocation seeks to make it wider still. We thus invite papers on the broad range of topics in American and global Unitarian Universalism, including, but not limited to, explorations of race, gender, and class; religious and spiritual hybridity and Unitarian Universalism; and Unitarianism and Universalism outside of the United States.
The UU Studies Network Convocations bring together mutually supportive academic and independent scholars, students, religious professionals, and laypeople who contribute to the intellectual, ecclesial, imaginative, and liberatory study of Unitarian Universalism.
Note: This announcement includes information about the Convocation 2025 dates, location, speakers, and themes. However, the final date to submit papers/proposals passed on Nov 24, 2024. Please see here for the original call for papers.
Registration Information
Please use the following link to register for Convo 2025. The registration fee is $300, which does not include the hotel or other expenses related to attending Convo. Hotel information can be found just a little farther down.
If you have applied for and been granted financial aid for the conference or hotel and information is not yet posted here regarding how to proceed, please contact us to find out how to register, etc.
Conference Hotel Information
Hotel: UNC Charlotte Marriott Hotel & Conference Center for $189 USD per night
Start Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025
End Date: Sunday, November 9, 2025
Last Day to Book: Monday, October 06, 2025
Method of Payment: Each individual will be required to provide a credit card at check-in to cover all charges. There is a $75 per night incidental hold that will be authorized upon check-in. As long as guests do not charge anything to the room, they will receive this authorization back.
Reservation Method: Each reservation should be made individually by each guest by the cut-off date of Monday, October 06, 2025.
Guests can book a room by calling reservations 1-(800) 228-9290 or by using the following online reservation link:
Program Information
Unitarian Universalist Studies Network 2025 Convocation Program Draft
Thursday, November 6, 2025
3:00-5:00pm – On-site Registration
Location: TBD
**5:00-6:00PM- Session 1
Opening Worship
Location: TBD
Worship Leader: Duncan Teague, Abundant Love Unitarian Universalist, Atlanta
6:00-7:30pm: Reception
Location: TBD
Friday, November 7, 2025
**8:30-10:00AM- Session 2
Recovering Historical and Theological Trajectories Through Translation
Location: TBD
Chair: Jay Atkinson, Starr King School for the Ministry
Presenter 1: Jay Atkinson, Starr King School for the Ministry
● Primary Theological Documents from Fausto Sozzini and Johann Crell
Presenter 2: Lehel Molnár, Babes-Bolyai University
● The Early Theology of Francis David
Presenter 3: Carolina Maciel, Young Adult Revival Network
● Portuguese Reception of Channing and Emerson
Presenter 4: Kazimierz Bem, Evangelical Theological School
● New Primary Sources from the Polish Brethren
**10:15-11:45AM- Session 3
Roundtable on Reparations from Principle to Practice
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD
Presenter 1: Eileen Wiviot, Unitarian Church of Evanston
Presenter 2: Sharon Welch, Meadville Lombard Theological School
Presenter 3: Dan McKanan, Harvard Divinity School
Lunch Break–11:45-1PM
**1:15-2:45PM- Session 4
The Past, Present, and Future of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism
Location: TBD
Chair: Takiyah Nur Amin, Virginia Tech
Presenter 1: Lena Gardner, Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism
Presenter 2: Mykal Slack, Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism
Presenter 3: Leslie Mac, Leslie Mac Consulting
Presenter 4: Donte’ Hilliard, Meadville Lombard Theological School/Church of the Larger Fellowship
**3:00-4:30PM- Session 5
Unitarianism in the Long Nineteenth Century
Location: TBD
Chair: Emily Mace, Meadville Lombard Theological School/First Unitarian Church of Chicago
Presenter 1: Scott Holland, Bethany Theological Seminary
● The London and Paris Years of Moncure Daniel Conway
Presenter 2: Sonya Dezarn, Starr King School for the Ministry
● Non-Subscribing Presbyterianism and Unitarianism in Ireland: Nineteenth Century Histories
Presenter 3: Melissa Jeter, Methodist Theological School in Ohio
● The Unitarian Connection to Early African American Education through AME Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne
**4:45-6:00PM- Session 6
Roundtable on Publishing Academic and General Audience Books (Hybrid)
Location: TBD
Chair: Colin Bossen, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston; Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford
Presenter 1: Mary Benard, Skinner House Books
Presenter 2: Mark Harris, First Parish of Watertown Unitarian Universalist (Emeritus)
Presenter 3: John David Smith, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
6:00pm-7:30pm Dinner
7:30pm-8:45pm Keynote Address
Peter Wirzbicki, Princeton University
Title: Persons Against Slavery: Tracing an Anti-Slavery Theology from William Ellery Channing to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Location: TBD
Saturday, November 8, 2025
8:00-11:45am – On-site Registration
Location: TBD
**8:30-10:00AM—Session 7
Widening Unitarian Universalist Principles and Practices: Informed by the Center for Courage and Renewal (Roundtable)
Location:
Chair: TBD
Presenter 1: Barbara Coeyman, Border Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
Presenter 2: Nancy Edmundson, Center for Courage and Renewal
Presenter 3: Andy Roach, Georgia State University
**10:15-11:45AM—Session 8
Capitalism, Imperialism, and the Global History of Unitarianism
Location: TBD
Chair: Sean McCloud, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Presenter 1: Colin Bossen, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston; Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford
● Unitarian Universalist Humanism, Human Rights, and Political Theology
Presenter 2: Dan McKanan, Harvard Divinity School
● Unitarianism, Capitalism, and Democracy
Presenter 3: Mark Harris, First Parish of Watertown Unitarian Universalist (Emeritus)
● The Global Beginnings of Unitarianism
Lunch Break–11:45-1PM
**1:15-2:45PM—Session 9
Race and Religious Liberalism
Location: TBD
Chair: Taylor Monk-Watkins, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Presenter 1: Andrea Johnson, First Universalist Church, Minneapolis
● A Complicated Relationship: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Unitarian Universalism
Presenter 2: Jason Wrenn, Independent Scholar/Family Historian
● An Exploration into the Lives of Joseph Fletcher Jordan and Annie B. Willis From a Family Perspective
Presenter 3: Christopher Cameron, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
● Religious Liberalism and Black Women’s Political Thought, 1865-1915
**3:00-4:15PM—Session 10
New Perspectives on Transcendentalism
Location: TBD
Chair: Joanne Maguire, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Presenter 1: Arthur Anderson,
● The Unitarian Transcendentalists and the Revival of Philosophical Religion
Presenter 2: David Breeden,
● The Art of Liberation: Reclaiming Radical Transcendentalism
**4:30-6:00PM—Session 11
Unitarian Universalist History and Theologies
Location: TBD
Chair: Barbara Coeyman, Border Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
Presenter 1: Fred Muir, Independent Scholar
● Unitarians/Universalists and Philippine Colonization, 1898-1946
Presenter 2: Jay Atkinson, Starr King School for the Ministry
● Meta-Theology and the Quest for UU Identity: An Essay in Unitarian
Universalist Ecclesiology
Presenter 3: Jim Kelley, Independent Scholar
● Heretics, Yankees, and Race: Trials of Unitarian Universalism in Post-Civil War Atlanta
6:00pm-7:30pm Dinner
7:30pm-8:45pm Keynote Address
Emily Dumler-Winckler, Saint Louis University
Title: Trans-Atlantic Abolitionism and Unitarianism: Dissent, Transcendentalism, and Beyond
Location: TBD
Sunday, November 9, 2025
**10:00-11:15AM—Session 12
Closing Worship
Location: Unitarian Universalist Community of Charlotte
234 N. Sharon Amity Road, Charlotte, NC 28211
Worship Leader: Amanda Weatherspoon