Dr. Aundrea Matthews–one of Ph.D. graduates–has recently been appointed as the Cultural Arts Director for the United States Corps of Cadet at the US Military Academy, West Point, New York. Congratulations, Aundrea!

 

Dr. David Kline, one of our PhD graduates and now a lecturer at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, recently published a great op-ed piece in the The Daily Beacon, UTK’s university newspaper. Entitled “The History of Religion, Race, and American Identity,” David’s piece interrogates the ways in which religion and race come together in the construction of American identity, and underscores the need for education in constructing an alternative imagination of American identity that is not tied to colonialism and anti-black racism.

Dr. Terri Laws, one of our PhD graduates and now an assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, recently published a wonderful article in the Journal of Religion and Health. Entitled “Tuskegee as Sacred Rhetoric: Focal Point for the Emergent Field of African American Religion and Health,” Dr. Laws interrogates the relation between black religion and Tuskegee.

Abstract: Scholars in African American religion engage the Tuskegee Syphilis Study as the focal point of the African American experience in institutional medicine. Seeking a way forward from this history and its intentional evil, the author proposes to position Tuskegee as a form of Lynch’s culturally contextual sacred rhetoric to make use of its metaphoric value in the emerging field of African American religion and health. In this broader meaning-making frame, Tuskegee serves as a reminder that African American religious sensibility has long been an agential resource that counters abuse of the Black body. It also acknowledges the complex decisions facing African American clinical trial participants.