The Gospel Imagination | Sawatsky Lecture

This lecture explores the worldview—the history, aesthetics and theology—that gives rise to Black gospel music. Surveying a diverse array of gospel selections, this presentation will clarify what this tradition shares: the belief that musical sound can turn spiritual power into a physical reality.

This free public lecture is on Wednesday, November 19, at 7:30 PM, in the Grebel Chapel. Reception to follow.

Please register in advance to reserve your seat.

Rev. Dr. Braxton D. Shelley is the George Washington Williams Professor of Music, of Sacred Music, and of Divinity at Yale University, where he is also faculty director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Music and the Black Church. A specialist in African American popular music, his research and critical interests, while especially focused on African American gospel performance, extend into media studies, sound studies, phenomenology, homiletics, and theology. His award-winning first book, Healing for the Soul: Richard Smallwood, the Vamp, and the Gospel Imagination develops an analytical paradigm for gospel music that braids together resources from cognitive theory, ritual theory, and homiletics with studies of repetition, form, rhythm, and meter. Healing for the Soul is the winner of four book prizes, including: the Lewis Lockwood Award from the American Musicological Society, the Emerging Scholar Award-Book from the Society for Music Theory, the Ruth Stone Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology, and the inaugural Portia Maultsby Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. His second book, An Eternal Pitch: Bishop G.E. Patterson, Broadcast Religion, and the Afterlives of Ecstasy was published in November 2023 by the University of California Press. His third book, Digital Antiphony: Black Gospel, Social Media, and the Craft of Collectivity is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.

A native of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Rev. Dr. Shelley received a BA in Music and History from Duke University, a Master of Divinity and a PhD from the University of Chicago. An ordained minister in the Baptist tradition, Rev. Dr. Shelley’s scholarly interests in gospel music and Black preaching are enriched by his practical investment in both fields. He is the composer of gospel selections including “Due Glory,” “Say So,” and “What A Day,” which have been ministered at conferences, concerts, and worship services across the country: the Gospel Music Workshop of America, The National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, and the Hampton University Ministers’ Conference/Choir Directors’/Organists’ Guild Workshop, among them. With his recording choir TESTIMONY, Prof. Shelley is completing a new recording project, “Your Name,” which is slated to appear in early 2026.