Johari Jabir, Ph.D.

Johari Jabir is a contemplative musician and scholar. A native of St. Louis, Johari was immersed in the expressive culture of St. Louis’ Black working class religious community. He currently serves a director of music at St. George & St. Matthias Episcopal Church; he works as an associate professor in the department of Black Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, and he is a prison abolitionist teacher with P-NAP (Prison and Neighborhood Arts Project) in Chicago, IL. His first book, Conjuring Freedom: Music and Masculinity in the Gospel Army of the Civil War (Ohio State University Press, 2017), is a cultural history of the nation’s first Black regiment, the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. Conjuring Freedom attends to the “spirituals” sung by the regiment in the ring shout as a mode of conjuring the spirit for military aims. Johari teaches several Black Studies courses, such as Black Music and Black Feminism, Black Religious History, and he assists public school teachers with mindfulness pedagogy.

Courses Taught:

• A Beloved Community: Healing, Justice, and the Urgency of Mindfulness (Spring 2021)