Research

I see the academic study of religion as an opportunity to investigate a wide range of human activities that I might otherwise take for granted. My published scholarship has focused on scriptures as cultural texts, the New Testament in Western imagination, the construction of race and identity in the United States, African American cultural history, and pedagogy in higher education.

My first monograph, Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures (Equinox 2020), redescribes the U.S. Bicentennial media spectacle as an example of the identity politics that go hand-in-hand with “scriptures.” I also present a theoretical vocabulary and grammar for explaining why some of the cultural texts that people read seem to read them back.

I’m currently working on two book projects. One is a primer on the critical study of scriptures that has taken place in the last thirty years. The other is a re-examination of key terms from the study of religion thoroughly informed by African American cultural history.

I count myself fortunate that my scholarship has been published in some of the leading journals in my discipline–such as Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Religion & Theology, the Journal of Biblical Literature–as well as Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds, The Abeng: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Criticism, Teaching Theology & Religion and other major research publications in my subfield. You can find those descriptions and links to that work below.

Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures

Identifying Roots unearths the politics of beginnings and belongings. While we all come from somewhere, this book examines the terms on which our roots can work as a tradition to embrace rather than a past to leave behind. And it investigates why some of the texts we read also seem to read us back.

Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists

This book introduces students to the so-called classics of the field from the 19th and 20th centuries, whilst challenging readers to apply a critical lens. Instead of representing scholars and their works as virtually timeless, each contributor provides sufficient background on the classic work in question so that readers not only understand its novelty and…

Remediating Scriptures: HTML as a Culture of Canon

Beyond being a computer code, the notions of “hypertext,” “markup,” and “language” (abbreviated in HTML) reflect a socio-political architecture that not only govern the canon culture of which the blog and social media are a part, but illumine the anthropological potentialities of scriptures, leaving us to ask how scriptures constitute the human differently. Furthermore, in recognizing the cultural possibilities remediated in forms such as community directories (cf. Facebook) and the printing press (cf. Wordpress), we can more fully consider the work people are doing with these digital tools and others.

Hebrew, Hebrews, Hubris?: Diagnosing Race and Religion in the Time of COVID-19

This article uses J. Z. Smith’s “Religion, Religions, Religious” as a model for redescribing an example of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy that illustrates the connected historical constructions of race and religion.

Racial Profiling?: Theorizing Essentialism, Whiteness, and Scripture in the Study of Religion

Contrary to a statement by the American Academy of Religion, the academic study of religion (and scripture, in particular) is not necessarily well suited to combat white supremacy and white nationalism because of its own essentialist tendencies.

Hallowed Haunts: The National African American Museum as Sacred Space

This paper uses Stephen Best’s None Like Us and Charles H. Long’s Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion to redescribe the notion of sacred space in light of the national African American museum.

Revising Scriptures: Unbinding a Critical Comparative Subfield

Abstract “Scriptures” is a term provoking no shortage of anxiety for postmodern scholars. This literature review introduces theorists to a subfield committed to theorizing about that term in critical and comparative terms. Revisiting the contributions of classic and contemporary scholars, readers will learn how the analytical study of scriptures is being unbound from the baggage…

Cover to Representing Religion in Film, edited by Tenzan Eaghll & Rebekka King, part of the Critiquing Religion: Discourse, Culture, Power series. The cover is a green inkblot with a yellow border along the spine.

Myth of the Auteur and the Authentic in Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Abstract Star Wars is heralded as an example of film as religion and the mythic masterpiece of auteur George Lucas. Of course, Star Wars, and its fandom, has received its fair share of criticism over the years. This chapter suggests that myth, auteurism, and the connection between religion and film might be better theorized as…

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Teaching in the Ideological State of Religious Studies: Notes Towards a Pedagogical Future

The study of religion has a precarious place in the academy. While it is tempting for scholar-teachers to cite the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning or government endorsements of the field’s relevance, such moves expose the political mooring of evaluative metrics that have grave implications for what we can teach in the classroom.

Cover of Journal of Religion and Violence

Scared Sheetless Negrophobia, the Fear of God, and Justified Violence in the U.S. Christian-White Imaginary

Anti-Black violence has a history that is intimately tied to Christian virtue and the ideology of biblicism. This paper looks at patterned justifications for Negrophobia as a way to understand the U.S. Christian-White Imaginary.

The Spooky Politics of Dark Truths

This paper approaches truth as an opportunity to explain the role of truth-claims in erecting and razing social boundaries. It begins by reframing or “signifying on” Alan Race’s typology of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism in order to register social formations rather than soteriological criteria. Then it reviews moments in African American cultural history in order to explain the ways people mediate identity politics though truth-claims.

Reading Alex Haley’s Roots: Toward an Anthropology of Scriptures

This essay examines the scriptural qualities of Haley’s Roots, contending that the story has had a binding effect on America’s racial consciousness. Building on the work of Vincent L. Wimbush and James W. Watts, it approaches Haley’s Roots as a case study in the anthropology of scriptures. A discourse analysis of media allusions to Kunta Kinte underscores Roots as an interpretive site around which Americans uproot, route, and root for a sense of meaning.

Keyword Essays on Teaching

Abstract Teaching in the Study of Religion and Beyond: A Practical Guide for Undergraduate Classes (Bloomsbury 2023), an anthology edited by Russell T. McCutcheon, gathers concise and immensely helpful essays to help guide professors and administrators in responding to currents in undergraduate education. Each is written by an experienced teacher-scholar in Religious Studies. My contributions…

“Signifying ‘Der Rassist’ in Religious Studies and the Axes of Social Difference” and “The Trope Has Been Set: Race and Religion as Critical Entanglement”

Abstract These essays challenge scholars to rethink the way they discuss race, religion, and their relationship. Building on the work of Jorge Luis Borges, they argue that scholars invent the categories as matters of orientation, useful for crafting axes of social difference. How and when they are deployed is dynamic and should be the object…

Disruptive Cartographers: Doing Theology Latinamente is provided as a series title. The volume's title is listed as Revelation in the Vernacular. Jean-Pierre Ruiz is listed as the author. There is an abstract image of a horizon and drawings from the Taino people.

Encuentros in the Cave: Aprovechar(se) Vernacular Revelations

Abstract This short essay responds to Jean-Pierre Ruiz’s Revelation in the Vernacular (Fordham 2021), thinking about the discourse of revelation in light of colonial encounters. It also takes seriously the discourse of doing theology latinamente and disruptive cartography, by signifying on the concept of “aprovechar(se)” as a way of considering the politics of revelation. Related…

Locating Value in the Study of Religion

The following paper responds to this disconcerting trend by casting religious studies as an analytical discipline that takes “evaluation” as its object of study. It details a way of navigating the critical turn using Michel de Certeau’s notion of “scriptural economy” as a pedagogical framework for three lower-level, undergraduate classes: REL-101 Signifying Religion: An African American Worldview, REL-226 Introduction to the New Testament, and REL-293 Introduction to Islam.

The African American Bible: Bound in a Christian Nation

The notion of a Christian nation is an especially fraught notion when thinking about America’s rendering of Black people. Is the Christian character of the nation a cause to which its people are committed (i.e. bound for) or is it a restricting circumstance with which its people must contend (i.e. bound by)? Both interpretations hold true when registering the ways African Americans are identified with the Bible and reflect the ambivalent power dynamics of scriptural texts. This article was part of a forum on the social movement known as Black Lives Matter.

The cover of Fabricating Identities, edited by Russell T. McCutcheon. It shows a shelf with 11 yellow rubber ducks and one blue rubber duck.

Naaaaaw You Show Me Your ID

A short essay exploring interpellation and the policing of identity. The piece features the experience of African Americans at U. S. Customs, the whipping of Kunta Kinte in the Roots miniseries, and what LeVar Burton taught his son to do were he to be pulled over by a police officer. The essay is in conversation with Vaia Touna’s, “Who are You? I am Vaia and I’m Touna.”

Questions on Religion in 5 Minutes

In these short essays, I attempt to answer two common questions from an Introduction to Religious Studies course: “Do Scholars of Religion Study Texts or Do They Study Religion First Hand, as an Anthropologist Might?” and “Is it Possible to Study Religion Academically and Still be Religious?”.

Signifying ‘Theory’: Toward a method of Mutually Assured Deconstruction

In response to Jason Blum’s “On the Restraint of Theory,” this chapter advocates for a clearer distinction between the tasks of explanation (or redescription) and interpretation, noting that both are forms of signification. Clarity on the different tasks also allows scholars to reimagine the content and forms of knowledge-production.

Cover of the journal, Teaching Theology & Religion

Conversation: Student self‐authorship and the goals of higher education

This edited transcript of a roundtable “fishbowl” conversation at a session of the 2018 national conference of the American Academy of Religion brings three teaching scholars together around a shared reading of Jane Fried’s book, Of Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes: Rethinking Teaching and Liberal Education for an Interconnected World (Stylus, 2016).

Third-Screen Teaching: Enhancing Classroom Learning with Mobile Devices

This chapter examines the role of mobile devices in the classroom, offering a context for reassessing their pedagogical promise.

Exegetical Essays on John 11: 17-37

Exegetical essays on Jesus dealing with the death of Lazarus and the response of Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha. The essays frame interpretation around the Fourth Gospel’s literary construction in light of the evangelist’s poetic license regarding geographic, metaphysical assumptions about the incarnation, and the diversity of Christianities in the Early Roman period.

Research

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