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
I am an inter-disciplinary historian of religion in America, with a particular focus on black communities and cultures in the U.S. and the Diaspora. 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. Most concisely, my research and writing pulls together the fields of African American Studies, American Religious History, and Theory and Method in the Study of Religion. I am currently at work on a book project that explores the significance of religion and spirituality in critical debates regarding racial aesthetics in twentieth century U.S. history.
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. Before joining the faculty at Columbia University I had the opportunity to apprentice under a number of excellent faculty members and teach my own courses at such schools as Harvard, Medgar Evers College (CUNY), Princeton and Tufts universities.
Below are descriptions of the two courses I am teaching this semester (Spring 2010):
Religion and Black Popular Cultures: This is an undergraduate seminar course introducing students to the study of religion, race. and popular culture.While there are no required prerequisites for the course, prior coursework in religious studies or African American history is helpful.As an exploration of the relationship between religion, race and popular culture, the course will begin with theoretical readings that expose students to a variety of definitions of and approaches to each of these categories.After tackling these theoretical concerns, the remainder of the course will entail a cross genre and thematic engagement with the terrain of black popular culture(s) in which students will be challenged to apply new theoretical resources to a wide range of religious phenomena.
Religion and Culture in Post-Civil Rights Black America: This is an advanced-level seminar on African American religion open to graduate students, and advanced undergraduates with prior background in the subject. More specifically, this course centers its queries around developments during the period commonly referred to as the “post-Civil Rights era,” (but which has also often been framed through the related rhetorics of “postmodern,” “postcolonial” and “post-Soul”). To this end, readings and discussions will explore the spiritual dimensions of black culture—both within formal religious traditions, but also more broadly as they are revealed in the arts, politics and popular culture—during the latter half of the twentieth century. Additionally, specific attention will be paid to major themes, challenges, questions and quandaries that have shaped the inter-disciplinary study of African American religion in recent years. Finally, taking a cue from Critical Race Theory, questions of agency, power and difference will be fore-grounded, as witnessed in how religious discourses and practices negotiate such categories as race, class, gender and sexuality.
