Speaker: Deborah Smith Pollard, Ph.D., Professor of English Literature and Humanities; Acting Chair, Department of Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts, University of Michigan-Dearborn. Dr. Pollard is the author of “When the Church Becomes Your Party: Contemporary Gospel Music,” which was named a 2009 Michigan Notable Book.

Since its emergence in the nineteenth century, gospel music has reflected the cultural values and aesthetics of the African-American community while embodying the tenets of Christianity. This presentation will trace how the look and sound of gospel has changed over the past century even as its basic message has remained a constant. Special attention will be given to the Negro spiritual, the music of Thomas A. Dorsey (the “father” of gospel music), and the rise of the contemporary gospel sound as exemplified by Kirk Franklin, gospel’s most successful living artist.