The North Star is published exclusively on the world wide web with two primary goals. First, in association with the Afro-American Religious History group of the American Academy of Religion, it provides information on events, new publications, research collections, and other resources in the field of African-American religious history. Second, we present peer-reviewed articles based on historical research that explore the religious cultures of people of African descent in the United States. While our interest is primarily in North America, we will on occasion publish work from other disciplines and/or that deals in a comparative way with other areas of the African diaspora, as well as with regions in Africa. We are committed to publishing the best new work in the field by senior and junior scholars. We also encourage graduate students working in this area to submit articles and book reviews and we hope to provide a venue for them to share their work and highlight new areas of study in the field.