he/him or they/them

Associate Professor

Religion, Culture, Power

As a scholar of African American religions, my research brings an interdisciplinary lens, including African American religious history, literary criticism, Black studies, contemporary theology (particularly Black, womanist, and queer theologies), and queer studies to bear in exploring the relationship of religion to varying socio-political phenomena, particularly race, gender, and sexuality.

In my current research, these diverse academic disciplines converge in the life and literature of James Baldwin, who, I argue, engages religion in a queer fashion. My first book project, tentatively titled Jimmy’s Faith: (A)Theology, Disidentification, and Religion’s Queer Possibilities (under advance contract with Fordham University Press), seeks to answer the question—What is James Baldwin doing with and through his literary deployment of religious language and symbols?  I argue that Baldwin “disidentifies” with and queers Black Christian language, symbols, and theology. According to queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz,  to disidentify with an object is not to embrace (identify) or full-on reject (counteridentify) a phenomenon, but it is a means of "transfiguring" or "recycling" a phenomenon which is typically hostile to the queer person, recreating it as a space of queer imagination, survival, and at times liberation (Muñoz, 1999, 39, 58). The book will demonstrate that Baldwin is doing just that throughout his vast literary corpus, for Baldwin continued to engage the symbols and theology of Christianity, queering and shifting their meaning toward building his own unique religious vision.

In conversation with Baldwin and others, my research explores the relevance and meaning of Black religion for those on the margins of or considered outside of traditional religious spaces, whether due to transgressive religious identities (Black skeptics, agnostics, humanists, or non-theists), or because of non-normative sexual or gender identities (i.e. queer and trans/gender nonconforming persons).

 

 

Regular Classes

RE 200 Religion and Race in the Modern World
RE 200 African American Religious History: An Introduction
RE 200 Queer(ing) Religious Thought: An Introduction to Queer Studies in Religion
RE 200 Black and Womanist Theologies
RE 200 James Baldwin and Religion