Building Better Worlds Together: The Second Annual Humanist Spark Summit

Building on their successful launch of the Humanist Spark Summit last year, Anthony Cruz Pantojas, Humanist Chaplain at Tufts University, and Evan Clark, Executive Director of Atheists United, are excited to continue expanding and nurturing a community of practice for emerging Humanist professionals and leaders. This year, the summit will take place virtually on September 27th and 28th, welcoming participants who might not have otherwise had the opportunity to travel. While embracing a virtual format, the summit will still harness deep inquiry and creative visioning to grapple with existential anguish and the metacrisis.

Describing this year’s focus, Cruz Pantojas shares that convening virtually will “challenge all of the participants to consider how to do sensemaking, activism, and advocacy differently” and to regard the virtual space as “an opportunity rather than mere convenience to create, hopefully, a transgenerational dialogue.” The theme of “building better worlds” is a nod to peripheralized epistemologies and realities, specifically acknowledging the generative tensions of creating coherence with plurality.

The lineup of presenters represents the summit’s goal to democratize Humanist advocacy. Some of them include:

Kyria Santa, a graduate student, president of Emory Secular Students and an emerging voice in campus-based secular organizing;
Sikivu Hutchinson, Harvard Humanist of the Year recipient and Secular Woman of the Year whose work centers on racial and gender justice within secular movements;
Nnenna Onwukwe, Communications Manager for the Secular Coalition for America and advocate for LGBTQIA+, women and non-theists rights through policy and public engagement;
Kristina Lee, a researcher exploring actions within movements and forms of resistance;
Debbie Goddard, Vice President of Programs at American Atheists who brings expertise in movement building and connects grassroots organizing to broader secular advocacy efforts;
Chelsea Lee Byers, Mayor of West Hollywood, CA, whose municipal leadership focuses on social service delivery, climate-change mitigation strategies, emergency resiliency efforts and affordable housing initiatives;
Jé Exodus Hooper, an artist, minister, and scholar from Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Summit, NJ, who will be providing an in-depth lens towards aesthetics, ethics, and cultural pluralism; and
Joey Krieger, R&D engineer at AEA Ribbon Mics developing pro-audio equipment, who got his start in Secular Humanism leading the Secular Student Fellowship at USC. He will present “Veganism is a Humanism!”

The Summit’s organizers, Atheists United and Tufts Humanist Chaplaincy, led by Anthony Cruz Pantojas and Evan Clark respectively, hope that the event offers aesthetic encounters and rich dialogic exchanges that underscore the urgency of interdependence even across digital interfaces.

The organizations supporting this year’s summit are: American Atheists, the Secular Coalition for America, Pitzer College, Secular Studies Program, Black Humanist Studies Association, and the American Humanist Association.

For further details visit the event registration page here.

Anthony Cruz Pantojas regularly presents at numerous conferences and facilitates workshops on humanistic orientations and sensibilities within this current sociopolitical climate. As a Humanist Chaplain at Tufts University, they collaborate with diverse stakeholders to promote humanism and to encourage more expansive and reparative modes of thought and relationship. Cruz Pantojas earned master’s degrees in Theological Studies, and Leadership Studies from Andover Newton Theological School and Meadville Lombard Theological School, respectively. Additionally, they hold a Certificate in Humanist Studies from the American Humanist Association Center for Education of which they are the first graduate. Anthony has also published in various scholarly and popular outlets.