Florida State University will host Albie Sachs, renowned human rights activist, writer and former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the week of Oct. 27, for an event sharing his experience as an anti-apartheid freedom fighter and a pivotal figure in South African history.

The event will include a film screening, lecture, book signing and more.

Born and raised in South Africa under an apartheid government, which maintained a system of legalized segregation, Sachs’ notable career defending those charged under repressive security laws and statutes led to him being appointed to South Africa’s new Constitutional Court, where he helped rewrite the country’s bill of rights and was a key part of the post-apartheid transition.

“Albie has devoted his life to establishing and preserving democracy, equality and justice,” said Matthew Goff, distinguished research professor of religion, director of graduate studies in the Department of Religion, and the event’s co-organizer. “He showed his commitment to these ideas in a way that represents the importance of the values we respect and honor.”

Sachs earned his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Cape Town in 1956 and started practicing as an advocate at the Cape Bar at the age of 21. While defending others, Sachs was incarcerated without trial and placed in solitary confinement by the security branch of the South African Police.

“Albie Sachs is a living legend. Rather than seek a violent retribution, he has devoted his life to changing the fundamental conditions for democratic life in South Africa.”

— Joseph Hellweg, associate professor of religion, event co-organizer

In 1966, Sachs was forced to flee his home country and went into exile in England. A few years later, he received his doctorate focused on the South African legal system from the University of Sussex in 1971. He then moved to Maputo, Mozambique, in 1977 to become a law professor at Eduardo Mondlane University.

After surviving an explosion in 1988 from a bomb placed in his car by South African security agents — which caused him to lose an arm and the sight in one eye — he devoted himself full-time to building a new democratic constitution for South Africa.

“Albie Sachs is a living legend,” said associate professor of religion and event co-organizer Joseph Hellweg. “Rather than seek a violent retribution, he has devoted his life to changing the fundamental conditions for democratic life in South Africa.”

Sachs returned to South Africa in 1990 and continued his work with the Constitutional Committee and the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress. He was appointed to the new Constitutional Court by Nelson Mandela after the country’s first democratic election in 1994. “Soft Vengeance,” a term coined by Sachs and the title of his documentary film, represents his efforts to eschew violence and rebuild a peaceful and just South Africa post-apartheid.

“For Albie, revenge meant reconstructing a society founded on laws that represented everyone,” Goff said. “As a judge, he helped write the Bill of Rights and tackled very technical questions about how to institutionalize justice. ‘Soft Vengeance’ means acting in the interest of all.”

The Askew Student Life Cinema will screen “Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa,” chronicling Sachs’ fight to end apartheid, on Wednesday, Oct. 29, from 5-7 p.m. Refreshments will be available at 4:30 p.m. Afterward, executive director of the FSU Center for the Advancement of Human rights and Associate Professor of Criminology Terry Coonan and Professor of Philosophy Simon May will lead a discussion session with Sachs.

On Thursday, Oct. 30, Sachs will deliver “Presidents and Power: How South Africa’s Highest Court Held Nelson Mandela and Two Other Presidents Accountable to the Constitution,” as part of the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy Ruth K. and Shepard Broad International Lecture Series. The lecture will be held from 5-6:30 p.m. at the College of Medicine Auditorium. A reception will precede the talk at 4:30 p.m. and a book signing will follow. Both events are free and open to the public.

“Albie wasn’t just an observer — he was a participant in the events he’ll be speaking about, and he played a central role in the post-apartheid transition,” Hellweg said. “His visit underscores the importance of international studies at American universities. Students will be enriched by an introduction to another English-speaking part of the world that has a very different experience of democracy than the United States, one from which we can learn.”

Sachs’ visit is sponsored by FSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, the FSU Department of Religion, the FSU Department of Philosophy, the FSU College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, the FSU College of Law, the FSU Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, and the Office of the Provost.

Please contact Matthew Goff, mgoff@fsu.edu, or Joseph Hellweg, jhellweg@fsu.edu, with questions.

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A new Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts exhibition is highlighting how water shapes cultural geographies and artistic practice, featuring artists from Florida and all over the world.

“Water Ways: Indigenous Ecologies and Florida Heritage” is hosted in collaboration with the FSU Native American and Indigenous Studies Center (NAIS), the Department of Religion and the Council on Research and Creativity. The exhibition, which opens Sept. 18, 2025, with a reception from 5:30-7:30 p.m., includes a slate of programming to be held now through its closing March 14, 2026.

The title plays on the dual meaning of “ways,” exploring both the physical paths and routes shaped by water as well as the ways — or various methods and practices — through which Indigenous communities express their relationships with water.

“The exhibition highlights how Florida’s Indigenous material heritage embodies ways of living with water and relates these practices to parallel traditions across the Americas and Asia,” said Elizabeth A. Cecil, Timothy Gannon Associate Professor of Religion and the exhibition’s curator. “Water Ways also invites reflection on pressing environmental issues, including water access, ecological change and climate resilience, by highlighting how communities have long understood and responded to the challenges of living with water.”

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A Florida State University religion scholar and cultural anthropologist has been appointed a fellow of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM), the premier center for the interdisciplinary study of sacred music, worship and the arts.

Joseph Hellweg, an associate professor in the Department of Religion, is one of 10 scholars who will spend the 2025-2026 academic year researching the history and culture of religions at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the first FSU faculty member to be awarded this prestigious fellowship.

Hellweg will pursue an interdisciplinary project on the songs of the late Dramane Coulibaly, a Muslim singer and healer for dozo hunters, a network of Indigenous hunters and healers from the Ivory Coast, located on the southern coast of West Africa. Coulibaly hosted Hellweg on multiple trips to the Ivory Coast to research dozo rituals since 1994.

“I’m thrilled to earn this fellowship and have the chance to spend a year writing and researching at Yale University. As a fellow, I’ll be paired with a faculty member and maintain a regular presence at the Institute to learn about other fellows’ work and access Yale’s two archives on the Ivory Coast as well as other resources.”

— Joseph Hellweg, Department of Religion associate professor

“I’m thrilled to earn this fellowship and have the chance to spend a year writing and researching at Yale University,” Hellweg said. “As a fellow, I’ll be paired with a faculty member and maintain a regular presence at the Institute to learn about other fellows’ work and access Yale’s two archives on the Ivory Coast as well as other resources.”

ISM is a partnership between the Yale School of Music, Yale Divinity School and other academic and professional departments at Yale University. Fellows like Hellweg are selected based on their project’s adherence to ISM’s mission of building interdisciplinary bridges from the study and practice of religion to music and art through creative spaces and pursuits.

“Dramane was a renowned healer, skilled hunter and brilliant artist — he sang to calm the ‘shadows’ of deceased dozo hunters after their deaths, and dozos claimed that his songs enabled them to transition peacefully to the afterlife,” Hellweg said. “I interpret Dramane’s songs as reflections on ancient dozo texts that scholars have interpreted as alternative ‘oral’ sources of human rights. Rather than confine dozos’ voices to an ancient past, I want to engage them in the present.”

Hellweg will work alongside musicologists analyzing ritual music in different cultures, including those in Indigenous and Islamic contexts. This will allow him to approach the musical aspects of ancient dozo texts through new lenses of global reception, consumption, nationalism and more.

“I was initially drawn to dozo hunters because of their music and dance performances, but then became interested in the unfolding dynamics of their unofficial security movement and involvement in the Ivory Coast’s rebellion from 2002 until 2011,” Hellweg said. “The manuscript I’ll write at Yale will invite ethicists and human rights scholars to engage Dramane’s songs as meaningful expressions that go beyond the seemingly traditional view that oral arts lack sophistication or value. Through this work, I aim to highlight the contributions of formerly colonized people to human rights policymaking.”

“My research challenges me to rearrange the way I think and feel, to extend my perspectives and better understand and empathize with my hosts in West Africa in order to exchange ideas and experiences with them so that we can enrich each other’s lives.”

— Joseph Hellweg, Department of Religion associate professor

In his manuscript, Hellweg will analyze how Coulibaly’s contemporary songs and the dances they’ve inspired — including the important role that dancing plays at dozo funerals — express human knowledge, skills and freedoms from a wider perspective of human rights.

“I’m thrilled that the ISM has acknowledged the cutting-edge nature of Joseph’s research,” said Martin Kavka, department chair and professor of religion at FSU. “In the study of religion, we aren’t necessarily attuned to how song — and especially song as a means of communing with the spirits of the dead — can express an ethical stance. Joseph’s research helps us attune to that by showing us the dozos as they are in themselves and not as they’re figuratively imagined in a scholar’s head.”

Hellweg joined FSU’s faculty in 2003 and teaches classes on African studies, anthropology and culture, including public health and religions in Africa, through the Department of Religion. His previous work includes three books on religion, politics and anthropology in Africa in addition to publications in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, the journal Africa, the African Studies Review, Africa Today, Afrique contemporaine, the Journal of Africana Religions, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and several edited collections.

Hellweg serves as deputy editor for the Journal of Religion in Africa and is a past president of the Mande Studies Association and co-editor-in-chief of its journal, Mande Studies.

“Returning to Dramane’s songs after publishing two articles on his work over the past six years has allowed me to enrich my approach to my own work as a whole,” Hellweg said. “My research challenges me to rearrange the way I think and feel, to extend my perspectives and better understand and empathize with my hosts in West Africa in order to exchange ideas and experiences with them so that we can enrich each other’s lives.”

For more information about research conducted in FSU’s Department of Religion, visit religion.fsu.edu.

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Maiya Johnson chose Florida State University for its exceptional research programs. At FSU, she has engaged in academic research and community service, highlighted by her honors thesis and leadership experience.

“I knew FSU was one of the most critically acclaimed research institutions in Florida, with students in the College of Arts and Sciences producing some of the best research in the nation,” she said.

As president of FSU’s religion club, Johnson’s leadership has provided a platform for many undergraduates to present their research, creating a collaborative and supportive academic cohort.

She is interested in continuing her education to the doctoral level. She will begin her Master of Arts in Religious Studies with a concentration in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale Divinity School in fall 2025.

What has been a defining experience for you as a student at FSU?

One of the most defining and rewarding experiences I have had at FSU is my involvement and leadership experience in FSU’s religion club, Students Organized for Religious and Cultural Exploration (SORCE). SORCE’s mission is to provide an academic platform for undergraduate students to present their research and get involved with the Department of Religion. As the president of SORCE, I have enjoyed connecting with undergraduate students from various majors and learning about their academic journeys and interests. Typically, SORCE hosts a semesterly undergraduate symposium for students to present research they have recently conducted for a course or program, such as Honors in the Major. I am passionate about providing undergraduate research opportunities, and SORCE has been a wonderful place to exercise my passion.

What has been your most significant academic achievement at FSU?

My most significant academic accomplishment at FSU (and what I am most proud of) is my Honors in the Major project concerning the religious experiences of a subset of women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During the beginning stages of research for my project, I quickly realized that there was an overwhelming lack of scholarship concerning the nuances of femininity in the church.  

I received an IDEA Grant to travel to Utah over the summer to conduct research for my Honors in the Major project. I am thankful for the opportunity to conduct my own ethnographic research and get hands-on experience on what it’s like to be a researcher in the field. 

I have worked with incredible faculty in the Religion Department, who have guided my research. 

What drew you to choose Florida State University?

Since beginning my collegiate journey, I knew I wanted to continue my education to the doctoral level, and I had a particular interest in conducting personalized research. Therefore, choosing FSU became one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made. Conducting my own research at FSU has guided my career path and my goals, helping me develop my own voice. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to create and present research and receive feedback from professors and other professionals. All the opportunities at FSU have allowed me to pursue research that specializes in my interests and shapes my education to best fit my needs. There truly is no other place like Florida State University.

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Florida State University has recognized four faculty members with the Developing Scholar Award, which honors the research contributions and creative work of associate professors.

Faculty were nominated by their respective academic departments. The awards, sponsored by the Council on Research and Creativity, include funding to promote the awardee’s program of research and creativity.

“Congratulations to these faculty members for their outstanding work and this well-deserved recognition,” said Vice President for Research Stacey S. Patterson. “FSU is proud to celebrate their accomplishments and to support them in their scholarship.”

Robert Tomko, Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Medicine
Tomko studies the structure and function of a protein system called the ubiquitin-proteasome system and its role in normal and disease states. His laboratory works on the scale of individual proteins up to whole cells and integrates approaches spanning biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, structural biology, proteomics, biophysics and pharmacology. His goal is to identify new targets for treatment and to develop pharmacological modulators with potential therapeutic benefits.

Elizabeth Cecil, Department of Religion, College of Arts and Sciences
Cecil examines text, images, monuments and landscapes to investigate the history of Hindu religions across South and Southeast Asia. She is the primary research collaborator in the European Research Council PURANA project and co-editor-in-chief of the open-access journal PURANA Media. At FSU, she contributes to the Native American and Indigenous Studies Center and is co-director of the More-than-human Religion project, which explores the agency of nonhuman forces, entities and ecologies.

Aaron Wilber, Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences
As a faculty member in FSU’s Program in Neuroscience, Wilber researches the brain dynamics that allow us to derive a sense of location from a body-centered view of the world — how we get oriented in space so we can navigate our environment and understand what goes wrong when this system fails. His research examines how these brain systems participate in learning and memory and how neural networks are altered by mental and memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Yanshuo Sun, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
Sun uses mathematical modeling and optimization methods to improve the planning, operations and management of transportation systems. His work touches several areas of transportation, including public transportation, freight transportation, airports, economics and transportation data analytics. Recent projects have examined how to improve the efficiency of on-demand mobility services in rural areas, the effects of fare capping for public transportation and how to strengthen data capabilities through academia-industry partnerships.

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A Florida State University scholar of religious studies has earned a prestigious fellowship from the National Humanities Center (NHC) to research the development of early print culture among the Cherokee Nation in the U.S. and an original writing system they created during the 19th-century.

Sonia Hazard, assistant professor of American religious history, was awarded a year-long fellowship to support her project “Christianity and the Book in the Cherokee Diaspora, 1821-1861,” which explores how Cherokee citizens used the printing press to create and distribute religious literature during the forced Cherokee migration of the antebellum period. This work builds upon Hazard’s ongoing research into Indigenous history, language and print culture related to religious movements in the U.S.

“Delight, surprise, gratitude; all those words come to mind when considering my excitement toward this fellowship and its resources to research and write my second book,” Hazard said. “This fellowship comes at a time in which FSU has newly committed to Native American studies by opening the Native American and Indigenous Studies Center last year. This center represents the formalization of something that’s been coming for a long time at FSU: scholarly dedication to the study of and collaboration with Indigenous communities.”

The National Humanities Center, founded in the mid-1970s, is a private nonprofit organization advancing the study in all areas of the humanities. Through NHC’s Residential Fellowship Program, scholars take leave from their normal academic duties to pursue research at the center and are granted resources to generate new knowledge relating to cultural expression and human thought. NHC fellowships are among the most prestigious in the world.

“While I’m looking specifically at religion and print culture in the 19th-century, issues associated with this topic continue to reverberate today; the more I can prioritize Indigenous stories in my scholarship, the better.”

– Sonia Hazard, assistant professor of American religious history and 2024-2025 NHC fellow

Hazard joins more than 1,500 fellows-in-residence from institutions around the globe, representing 45 academic fields. She is among 31 fellows appointed for the 2024-2025 academic year from a pool of 492 applications. Hazard is one of seven FSU researchers to be named an NHC fellow since the center opened for its first group of fellows in 1978.

“It’s not surprising that the NHC has recognized the quality of Professor Hazard’s work,” said Martin Kavka, department chair and professor of religion. “Her research is key to pushing students and scholars to rethink what the study of religion can be. While some think of the study of religion as learning theology or arguing views, Professor Hazard departs from this in thinking about printing and tracts as techniques for performing a religious identity.”

Hazard’s project explores the production and distribution of Cherokee Christian materials in the Cherokee syllabary, a set of written characters representing syllables in the Cherokee language, during the deadly period of struggle caused by the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and what became known as the Trail of Tears.

“It’s important to center Indigenous intellectual contributions, movements and materials since these groups have not always been the focus of scholars,” Hazard said. “This project is a continuation of contextualizing these contributions within the study of U.S. colonialism and its devastation of Indigenous nations. While I’m looking specifically at religion and print culture in the 19th-century, issues associated with this topic continue to reverberate today; the more I can prioritize Indigenous stories in my scholarship, the better.”

“When examining a text, I read the content, but I also look at the binding, style of typography and imagery, how the images and text work together, and if there are any indications of readership or traces of use such as marginalia,” Hazard said. “These sorts of materiality-based methods have been particularly rich when exploring Native American textual materials, especially since many archives of disparaged communities weren’t always considered worthy of preservation; I want every method at my disposal in uncovering Indigenous creativity.”

Hazard earned her doctoral degree in 2017 from Duke University and joined FSU’s faculty in 2019. Her first book “Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media” is slated for publication in 2025 and has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society in 2018, the Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Completion Fellowship in 2017, and the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School in 2017.

FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) Center was launched last year and unites research from academics across diverse disciplines within the university, including art, art history, music, modern languages and linguistics, religion, history, archaeology, geography and anthropology. The NAIS Center provides a physical and conceptual hub for community members who are committed to Native American and Indigenous research and artistic practice, while also promoting and coordinating consultations with tribal nations and community leaders, educational efforts inside and outside of the classroom, and collaborative scholarship more broadly.

To learn more about Hazard’s research and the FSU Department of Religion, visit religion.fsu.edu. For more information about FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center, visit nais.fsu.edu.

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Florida State University is bringing together scholars from across humanities disciplines for a conference this week that will explore how Indigenous people have interacted with their environment in religious practice and what this means for us today.

The conference, “More-than-human Religion: Indigeneity, Objects, and Ecologies,” which features expert presentations, panel discussions, a public reception and book signing, is presented by FSU’s Department of Religion and FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center (NAIS), with the large conference program spanning April 25-28.

Participants will address emerging questions in the field regarding how to drive research beyond the strictly human aspects of religion, incorporate concepts like ecology and material culture and consider how to ethically engage with these subjects at talks held in multiple locations on the Tallahassee campus.

“I am delighted to be able to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and community experts from around the world,” said co-organizer Sonia Hazard, an assistant professor of religion. “We are proud to be a small part of FSU’s commitment to building relationships and intellectual partnerships with the Indigenous nations and communities whose homelands are Tallahassee and the FSU campus.”  

FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center was launched last year and unites research from academics across diverse disciplines within the university, including art, art history, music, modern languages and linguistics, religion, history, archaeology, geography and anthropology. Five affiliated faculty members from NAIS will present their research, and others from NAIS will be there.

“The ‘More-than-human Religion’ conference is exactly the type of project we want to support,” said Andrew Frank, director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Center. “It’s multi-disciplinary, it places academics alongside Seminoles and Native American experts, and grapples with both local and global issues. Co-sponsoring this event is an amazing opportunity for us to learn from some of the world’s most influential voices and for us to share the fantastic work being done by our faculty, students and alumni.”

“We are proud to be a small part of FSU’s commitment to building relationships and intellectual partnerships with the Indigenous nations and communities whose homelands are Tallahassee and the FSU campus.”  

– Sonia Hazard, conference co-organizer and assistant professor of religion

Presentations will emphasize the reciprocal relationship between humans and nature as found in many Indigenous religious traditions. From South Asian beliefs in rivers as goddesses, to the important role of plants in Mesoamerican religious ritual, to the symbiotic relationships of pollinating insects with human agriculture, Indigenous traditions often explore how humans and the material world have the power and ability to impact the other.

Organizing questions will center around how to understand non-human influences on the world and how religious studies can affect social, political and environmental spheres of society. To reach these diverse methodologies, the conference invites participation from groups outside religion, such as art history, anthropology, geography and history. Nearly three dozen scholars are slated to present or participate, coming from FSU, across the U.S., and as far away as Belgium and the Netherlands.

Programming will include keynote lectures, plenary panels and panels featuring faculty and graduate students. The keynote address will be given by Amitav Ghosh, an internationally acclaimed writer who blurs the line between anthropology, environmental studies, cultural criticism and Indigenous studies in his work.

“I’m so excited for this conference,” said Martin Kavka, religion department chair. “So much of humanities research at the turn of the millennium was about disenchanting and demystifying the world. But the speakers being brought to campus by Elizabeth Cecil and Sonia Hazard, co-organizers and professors, are showing us how people have and do enchant their worlds and improve them as a result.”

Among the conference highlights is a museum panel featuring curators and professionals from the Seminole Tribe’s Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum. Located on the Big Cypress Reservation in Hendry County, Florida, the museum provides a learning opportunity about the Seminole people’s history and culture in the Southeast and Florida. Representatives from the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki will be sharing their expertise about museum practices and heritage preservation for the more than 200,000 works of art and historic objects they manage.

“I hope that participants come away with new ideas and tools for rethinking the ‘more-than-human’ dimensions of their research programs and professional lives,” Hazard said.

The conference is free and open to the public. For registration, the schedule of presentations, a full list of abstracts and more, visit morethanhuman.create.fsu.edu.

To learn more about the FSU Department of Religion, visit religion.fsu.edu. For more about the FSU Native American and Indigenous Studies Center, visit nais.fsu.edu.

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