The Underground Railroad:
unearthing stories of social rebirth
Date: Thursday, January 20, 2022, 7:00 - 8:00 pm ET
Available by: Join by Videoconference Only (learn more about videoconference)
Suggested Love Offering: $ 10.00
Facilitated by:
Rev. Dr. Sushmita Mukherjee and Dr. Gerard Aching.
Come join us on January 20th, 2022, on the heels of MLK Day, as we sit in conversation with Dr. Gerard Aching, Professor of Africana and Romance Studies, Cornell University, and the director of the Underground Railroad Project in Ithaca, New York.
In this conversation moderated by Rev. Dr. Sushmita Mukherjee, a First Year Seminary Dean at One Spirit, we will hear stories about the discoveries arising from an archeological excavation of the St. James AME Zion Church in Ithaca (often referred to in the 19th century as the “Freedom Church,” or as the “Mother Church”), that served as an important station in the Underground Railroad, and hosted luminaries including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and W.E.B. Du Bois.
Join us, as we hear stories that reinforce our faith in human courage, our common yearning for freedom and self-agency, and our deep instinct for justice and mutual wellbeing.
Further reading for those interested:
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/12/freedom-church-unearths-its-underground-railroad-history
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/09/excavation-explore-churchs-role-underground-railroad
Facilitators:
Rev. Dr. Sushmita Mukherjee
Rev. Dr. Sushmita Mukherjee is an ordained interspiritual minister, spiritual counselor and a Dean at the Seminary Program at One Spirit. Trained as a biophysicist and cell biologist in India and in the United States, she works as an Associate Professor of Research at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City. Her scientific work focuses on high-resolution microscopy and image analysis, and their applications in cutting edge biomedical research. She is thus very finely attuned to the nuances of images, and the stories images can tell. Sushmita’s soul-work is that of psychospiritual alchemy, carried out within a Jungian/Archetypal vessel. This Work is deeply influenced by the teachings of Carl Jung, James Hillman and Joseph Campbell. Sushmita sees images that arise from the depths of our souls (in the form of dreams, fantasies, impulses and ideas), as carriers of potent symbols that can transcend apparent dualities. Images, for her, are living psychic entities which have the power to reweave the torn fabric of our souls, thus bringing about a profound wholeness. Sushmita loves to write, to visualize, to teach and to create art that lives at the interface of Science and Soul.
Dr. Gerard Aching
Dr. Gerard Aching is professor of Africana and Romance Studies. He specializes in 19th- and 20th- century Caribbean literatures and intellectual histories, theories of modernism and modernity in Latin America, and the relation of literature, philosophy, and slavery in the Caribbean and the United States. His most recent book is Freedom from Liberation: Slavery, Sentiment, and Literature in Cuba (Indiana, 2015). Aching’s current research and teaching focus on subjectivity in slave narratives, slavery and philosophy, and sugar production in the development of the modern transatlantic world. His Underground Railroad Research Project, which entails field work in Central and Western New York, informs his new book project, The Promise of Rebirth: A Contemporary Approach to the Underground Railroad.
If you have questions about registering for this course, please contact One Spirit Learning Alliance by email to info@1spirit.org or call 212-931-6840.