Rev. Dr. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan | |
---|---|
Born | July 24, 1951 [1] |
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | academic, writer, theologian |
Known for | womanist theology |
Title | Professor of Religion and Director of Women's Studies |
Academic background | |
Education | Ph.D. |
Alma mater | Baylor University |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Pacific School of Religion;Shaw University Divinity School |
Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan (born 1951) is an African-American womanist theologian,professor,author,poet,and an elder in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. She is Professor Emerita of Religion and Women's Studies and Director of Women's Studies at Shaw University Divinity School. She is the author or editor of numerous books,including the volume Women and Christianity in a series on Women and Religion in the World,published by Praeger.
Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan grew up in Louisiana. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southwestern Louisiana. [2] She then studied voice and earned a Master of Music at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduation,she moved to New York to pursue a career in music,and she performed at Carnegie Hall. She later returned to Texas with her husband,the late Hon. Mike Kirk-Duggan. [3]
Kirk-Duggan earned a Master of Divinity degree from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. [4] She graduated with a PhD. in Theology/Ethics from Baylor in 1992. [3] She is an ordained elder in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. [5]
From 1997 to 2004,she was the director of the Center for Women and Religion at the Pacific School of Religion,in Berkeley,California. [6] She joined the faculty at Shaw University Divinity School in 2004,where she continues to teach. She is professor emerita of religion and director of women's studies. [3] In 2019–2020,she was the Crump Visiting Scholar and Black Religious Scholars Group Scholar-in-Residence at Seminary of the Southwest. [7]
Kirk-Duggan has contributed to the development of womanist theology through her writing and teaching. She has particularly focused on using a womanist lens to discuss theology and violence. In 1997,she authored Exorcizing Evil:a Womanist Perspective on the Spirituals. Among other titles,she published A Refiner's Fire:A Religious Engagement with Violence in 2001, and Violence and Theology in 2006.
Kirk-Duggan contributed the essay on "Womanist Theology as a Corrective to African American Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of African American Theology. [8] She has also authored the essay on "Sacred and Secular in African American Music" in the Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts. [9]
In 2011,she co-authored,with Marlon Hall,Wake Up:Hip-Hop,Christianity,and the Black Church. The authors provided historical review of the development of hip-hop music and culture,and questioned why churches resist incorporating this music form in worship settings. According to Monika Seweryn,writing for The Christian Librarian,"the writers try to inspire readers to embrace this hip-hop-'filled' youth and give them a venue to express their pain,irritation,desires through their own venue,hip hop." [10]
Kirk-Duggan co-edited,with Karen Jo Torjesen,the volume Women and Christianity in the book series on "Women and Religion in the World," published by Praeger. A. Brenda Anderson,writing a review for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion ,notes,"The great merit of Women &Christianity is the editors' ability to weave the diverse voices—the critiques as well as the hopes—from their numerous Christian feminist networks into a cohesive academic analysis without losing the uniqueness and fluidity of personal circumstances." [11]
Kirk-Duggan is a poet,and has two books of poems published. The first,It's in the Blood:A Trilogy of Poetry Harvested from a Family Tree,was co-authored with Deurie V. Kirk and Alice Kirk-Blackburn. [12] She then published a full volume of her own poetry,entitled Baptized Rage,Transformed Grief:I Got Through,So Can You.
In 2011,Kirk-Duggan won the YWCA Academy of Women Award in education. [13]
In 2013,she won the Mentor Award from the Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession at the Society for Biblical Literature. [2]
Womanist theology is a methodological approach to theology which centers the experience and perspectives of Black women,particularly African-American women. The first generation of womanist theologians and ethicists began writing in the mid to late 1980s,and the field has since expanded significantly. The term has its roots in Alice Walker's writings on womanism. "Womanist theology" was first used in an article in 1987 by Delores S. Williams. Within Christian theological discourse,Womanist theology emerged as a corrective to early feminist theology written by white feminists that did not address the impact of race on women's lives,or take into account the realities faced by Black women within the United States. Similarly,womanist theologians highlighted the ways in which Black theology,written predominantly by male theologians,failed to consider the perspectives and insights of Black women. Scholars who espouse womanist theology are not monolithic nor do they adopt each aspect of Walker's definition. Rather,these scholars often find kinship in their anti-sexist,antiracist and anti-classist commitments to feminist and liberation theologies.
James Hal Cone was an American Methodist minister and theologian. He is best known for his advocacy of black theology and black liberation theology. His 1969 book Black Theology and Black Power provided a new way to comprehensively define the distinctiveness of theology in the black church. His message was that Black Power,defined as black people asserting the humanity that white supremacy denied,was the gospel in America. Jesus came to liberate the oppressed,advocating the same thing as Black Power. He argued that white American churches preached a gospel based on white supremacy,antithetical to the gospel of Jesus.
Anthony B. Pinn is an American professor working at the intersections of African-American religion,constructive theology,and humanist thought. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He is founder and executive director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning in Houston,Texas,and Director of Research for the Institute for Humanist Studies in Washington,D.C.
Katie Geneva Cannon was an American Christian theologian and ethicist associated with womanist theology and black theology. In 1974 she became the first African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (USA).
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas is an American author and educator. She is associate professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt Divinity School and the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University in Nashville,Tennessee. Floyd-Thomas is a Womanist Christian social ethicist whose research interests include Womanist thought,Black Church Studies,liberation theology and ethics,critical race theory,critical pedagogy and postcolonial studies.
Grace Ji-Sun Kim is a Korean-American theologian and Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion,Richmond,Indiana. She is best known for books and articles on the social and religious experiences of Korean women immigrants to North America.
Monica A. Coleman is a contemporary theologian associated with process theology and womanist theology. She is currently Professor of Africana Studies and the John and Patricia Cochran Scholar for Inclusive Excellence at the University of Delaware,as well as the Faculty Co-Director Emerita for the Center for Process Studies. Her research interests include Whiteheadian metaphysics,constructive theology,philosophical theology,metaphorical theology,black and womanist theologies,African American religions,African traditional religions,theology and sexual and domestic violence,and mental health and theology. Coleman is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Jacquelyn Grant is an American theologian,a Methodist minister. Alongside Katie Cannon,Delores S. Williams,and Kelly Brown Douglas,Grant is considered one of the four founders of womanist theology. Womanist theology addresses theology from the viewpoint of Black women,reflecting on both their perspectives and experience in regards to faith and moral standards. Grant is currently the Callaway Professor of Systematic Theology at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
Marcia Y. Riggs is an American author,the J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics,and the Director of ThM Program at Columbia Theological Seminary,a womanist theologian,and a recognized authority on the black woman’s club movement of the nineteenth century. She was one of six Luce Scholars named by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) and The Henry Luce Foundation,Inc. as Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology for 2017-2018.
Delores Seneva Williams was an American Presbyterian theologian and professor notable for her formative role in the development of womanist theology and best known for her book Sisters in the Wilderness:The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Her writings use black women's experiences as epistemological sources,and she is known for her womanist critique of atonement theories. As opposed to feminist theology,predominantly practiced by white women,and black theology,predominantly practiced by black men,Williams argued that black women's experiences generate critical theological insights and questions.
Renita J. Weems is an American Protestant biblical scholar,theologian,author and ordained minister. She is the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in Old Testament studies in the United States. She is the Dean of Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta,Georgia. She was influenced by the movement in the last half of the 20th century which argues that context matters and shapes our scholarship and understanding of truth. She is best known for her contribution to womanist theology,feminist studies in religion and black religious thought. She is recognized as one of the first scholars to bring black women's ways of reading and interpreting the Bible into mainstream academic discourse. In 1989 she received a Ph.D. in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible studies from Princeton Theological Seminary making her the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in the field. Her work in womanist biblical interpretation is frequently cited in feminist theology and womanist theology.
Dianne Marie Stewart is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Emory University. Dr. Stewart's work focuses on religion,culture and African heritage in the Caribbean and the Americas as well as womanist religious thought and praxis. Dianne M. Stewart is the author of Three Eyes for the Journey:African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience (Oxford University Press,2005),Black Women,Black Love:America’s War on African American Marriage and Obeah,Orisa and Religious Identity in Trinidad,Volume II,Orisa:Africana Nations and the Power of Black Sacred Imagination.
The Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas is an African-American Episcopal priest,womanist theologian,and interim president of Episcopal Divinity School. She was previously the inaugural Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary. She became interim president when EDS departed from Union in 2023. She is also the Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral. She has written seven books,including The Black Christ (1994),Black Bodies and Black Church:A Blues Slant (2012),Stand Your Ground:Black Bodies and the Justice of God (2015),and Resurrection Hope:A Future Where Black Lives Matter (2021). Her book Sexuality in the Black Church:A Womanist Perspective (1999) was groundbreaking for openly addressing homophobia within the Black Church.
Mitzi J. Smith is an American biblical scholar who is J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. She is the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in New Testament from Harvard. She has written extensively in the field of womanist biblical hermeneutics,particularly on the intersection between race,gender,class,and biblical studies. She considers her work a form of social justice activism that brings attention to unequal treatment of marginalized groups.
Nyasha Junior is an American biblical scholar. Her research focuses on the connections between religion,race,and gender within the Hebrew Bible. She holds a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary. She was associate professor at Temple University before moving to the University of Toronto in the department for the Study of Religion. She was a visiting associate professor and research associate at Harvard Divinity School for the 2020–21 academic year.
Cheryl Townsend Gilkes is an American sociologist,womanist scholar,college professor,and ordained Baptist minister.
Wilda C. Gafney,also known as Wil Gafney,is an American biblical scholar and Episcopal priest who is the Right Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth,Texas. She is specialist in womanist biblical interpretation,and topics including gender and race.
Chanequa Walker-Barnes is an American theologian and psychologist. Her research as a clinical psychologist has focused on African American health disparities,and as a womanist theologian she has written about the myth of the "StrongBlackWoman" and the need for the voices of women of color. She has written two books,Too Heavy a Yoke and I Bring the Voices of My People.
Cheryl J. Sanders is an African-American professor and scholar of Christian Ethics. Her work on womanist ethics has been influential in the development of the field. She teaches Christian Ethics at Howard University School of Divinity. Her books include Ministry at the Margins,Saints in Exile:The Holiness Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion,and Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People:A Path to African American Social Transformation.
Stephanie Y. Mitchem is an American scholar of religious studies and African American studies. Her teaching and research focuses on the African-American religious experience,womanist theology,and the religions of the African diaspora.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)