The History of the Black Madonna: Spirituals Made Visual

Dr. Kymberly Pinder (she/her) is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean of the Yale School of Art. An alumna of Yale’s History of Art program, Dr. Pinder is an internationally recognized scholar of race, representation, and public art. She is the author of Painting the Gospel: Black Public Art and Religion in Chicago and the editor of Race-ing Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History. Dr. Pinder is widely known for her deep commitment to education and its potential to address local and national challenges. In addition to being an eminent scholar and educator, she has extensive experience at institutions of higher education and museums.

Brother James Koester, SSJE was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He studied History and English Literature at Trent University (Peterborough, ON) and received a Master’s of Divinity from Trinity College (Toronto, ON). Before arriving at SSJE, he served as a parish priest in the Diocese of British Columbia. James was life-professed in the SSJE community in 1995 and has since served as Superior, the Senior Brother at Emery House, and Community Archivist. He has combined his love of long-distance walking and early British History by walking both the St. Cuthbert’s Way and the Hadrian’s Wall Path. He is currently compiling a list of every man who has tested a vocation at SSJE and working on a history of the Society’s part in introducing the Holy Week rites in English to North American Anglicans and Episcopalians.

Reverend Nedelka Prescod is a seasoned multi-genre vocalist and multi-expressive musician, as well as a teacher, speaker/preacher and consultant. Currently a student at Andover Newton at Yale Divinity School, her work fuses music with a desire to develop and edify community through collaborative music-making and creative practices with a heart for social justice and celebrating personal stories. She is the visionary of The Un-Silenced Voice project, an endeavor that seeks to uncover and/or empower feminine and silenced voices (actual, artistic, and communal) retracted by trauma. Minister Prescod is also working on Black & Panamañian, an episodic video series that pays homage to her Caribbean and Central American heritage and culture.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, George W. Russell Jr. is a performer, composer, and educator. George’s performances range from solo piano to a groove-oriented jazz trio to a soulful, fresh-sounding larger ensemble that arouses the listener's intellect and, most importantly, touches their soul. His playing is filled with passion, fire, soul, and spirit. Russell currently serves as Chair of the Harmony and Jazz Composition Department at the Berklee College of Music. Prior to that, he served as a professor of harmony and piano. He has been awarded the Ted Pease Award for Excellence in Teaching, along with the Curriculum Development Award. He has also been recognized with the highest award that Berklee gives to faculty, the Most Distinguished Faculty Award. Russell’s motto is “I would rather inspire than require.” 

Instagram - @georgewrusselljr
 

Diana Seave Greenwald is an art historian and economic historian. She currently serves as the William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where she has curated Betye Saar: Heart of A Wanderer and Fellow Wanderer: Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Travel Albums, among other exhibitions. Prior to joining the Gardner, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., working in the departments of American and British Paintings and Modern Prints and Drawings. Her first book, Painting by Numbers: Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth-Century Art, was published by Princeton University Press in 2021. She holds a BA in Art History from Columbia University, an M.Phil. in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford and a D.Phil. in History from the University of Oxford.