As I understand it, a solid scholarly vocation is best supported by a reciprocal relationship between teaching and research. What follows is a brief description of how I attempt to balance these two critical commitments.

RESEARCH
My research interests include religion and the arts, popular culture, the religious experiences of youth and young adults and the role of religion and spirituality in public life. Towards this end, I completed Ph.D. exams (with the highest mark of Excellent) in May of 2004 in the fields of African American History & Literature, American Religious History, and Theory and Method in the Study of Religion. As part of my research on the significance of religion and spirituality in popular culture, I am affiliated with the Hiphop Archive at Stanford University and serve as an advisor to the African Hip Hop Research Project at Harvard University.

Currently my intellectual energies are primarily directed towards writing my dissertation, Spirit Soundings: Religion, Race and the Arts in Twentieth Century America, which engages the lives of black artists as a lens into America’s religious landscape. For more details, please click on the following link: Josef’s Dissertation Abstract

TEACHING
As a professor I value each class as a community of teacher-learners. The classroom provides a democratic space in which I am given the chance to serve as the primary facilitator as we critically engage an array of questions. Thus far I have had the opportunity to apprentice under a number of excellent faculty members (See CV for more info) and have taught at such schools as Harvard, Medgar Evers College (CUNY), Princeton and Tufts universities.

Courses that I have TA’d:
African Americans and a New Racial Divide
American Protest Literature
Faith, Politics and Society
Hip Hop America: Power, Politics and the Word
Race, Class and Intelligence
Religion in America: 1865 to the 1970s
Religion and Latin American Imaginations
Religious Dimensions in Human Experience

Courses that I have designed and taught myself:
African American Religion
Critical Perspectives on Religion, Race and the Arts
Hip Hop Culture On Campus: An Introduction
Philosophy and the Black Experience

Dream Courses
African American Religious History (Part I and II)
Meeting “God” on MTV: Religion and American Popular Culture
In Remembrance of Me: Religion, Race and the American Memoir
The Spirits of 21st Century Black Folk: Religion in Contemporary Black America
Hip Hop meets the Holy: An Introduction to the Study of Religion

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For Josef’s complete Curriculum Vitae, click on the following link:
Josef Sorett’s CV (pdf)

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