In 2017, the AAR Black Theology Group called for papers on the topics of:

• Author Meets Critics: Josef Sorett's Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 2016)
• Michelle Alexander and Walter Fluker: The Mystical-Prophetic in Black—A Special Look at Mass Incarceration and the Black Lives Matter Movement
• Afro-pessimism and Black Theology