What drew you to education as a profession?
Great question. For me, I would have to say that my passion for education can be traced back to the beautiful Black faith community that both formed and inspired me as a child. Reading sacred texts like the Bible and approaching practices of faith with critical care was a precondition to a certain type of coveted maturity within our community. By the time I was 13, I already owned study bibles, Bible dictionaries and all sorts of theological study materials. However, reading these materials did not turn me into some sort of child preaching prodigy. Quite the opposite. Reading the prophets of the Hebrew Bible alongside the gospel traditions created within me a deep awareness that, for thousands of years, communities throughout the world have dealt with issues of war, oppression, premature death and a visceral need to apprehend the truth of what awaits us beyond the incontrovertible fact of the grave. Moreover, as a child, I was always haunted by the braided history of the cross my father sang and preached about with tear-stained conviction. The cross, all-at-once, served as an instrument of unspeakable torture and suffering as well as a sign of otherwise possibility. On any given Sunday, I would sing songs dedicated to the themes of hope and renewal at the beginning of the service and be shaken to my core by the violence and terror inflicted upon Jesus of Nazareth by the end of the service. These braided emotions occasioned within me the desire to pursue the vocation of an educator and study subjects like death, hope, joy, evil, justice, suffering, love and otherwise possibility (I attribute the term otherwise possibility to Ashon Crawley, a friend and brilliant colleague of mine). There came a point in my teenage (self-directed) studies where I realized that neither my Baptist-ordained father nor the ministers at our church could attend to my questions about life and the problem of evil in the world. Answers that satisfied them confounded me all the more. Whereas they did not want to pursue any line of theological questioning that might produce a distressing crisis of faith, I felt that the haunting cross I was made to sing about and reflect upon every Sunday for 18 years required the sort of intellectual tarrying they resisted. Refusing to let my curiosities die within me, I sought a way forward through the one institution I believed could hold my intellectual questions, concerns and haunting distress with critical care: the university.
What attracted you to the OU Department of Religious Studies?
Oh, where do I begin? First, I am a lifelong Texan, so having the opportunity to work in a region I am intimately familiar with is a joy unspeakable. Second, while my colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies are nationally recognized for their brilliant research, I can say without equivocation that they are even better people. I believe with all my heart that care is not the antithesis of rigor, and my colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies evince through the praxis of care they model before students, staff and one another. I also want to be clear that I am not only speaking of my faculty colleagues; our department administrator, Lee Green, has been nothing short of amazing since my family arrived in Norman this summer.
While any university can point to awards, fellowships, university press publications and a lengthy record of keynote addresses their faculty has accrued throughout the years, not every university can say the feats of their faculty were accomplished while foregrounding the dignity and integrity of the broader intellectual community (which, without question, includes undergrads and grad students!). I am at OU because honoring the integrity and dignity of all workers is the witness of the Department of Religious Studies at OU, and I can say firsthand that this reputation precedes them. Moreover, I came here because I believe that the broader OU community possesses a shared commitment to the essential role the academic study of religion plays in shaping students who, upon their graduation, are prepared to honor difference, embrace complexity and lead with integrity.
What's something that students and colleagues should know about you?
I care. I care about the lives and well-being of students. I care about the lives and well-being of my fellow colleagues. I care about the broader Norman/OKC community where my family has chosen to root our lives. My pedagogical posture is textured by care. My research and scholarly writing are textured by care. My presence on this campus will be textured by a deep respect, a deep care for every life I am privileged to encounter.
I want students and colleagues to know that I am a colleague and professor who is convinced that care is not the antithesis of rigor.
Can you talk about your research/teaching and any exciting upcoming projects you may be working on?
Of course! This fall I am thrilled to be teaching our 1113 Introduction to Religious Studies course. Religion, in many ways, serves as a metonym for some of our most profound terrors and desires. The things we hate; the things we love; the truths that can only be articulated via groanings too deep and sacred for words; this is what I am excited to unpack with students. We live in a world teeming with myriad challenges and crises. We also live in a world that is always producing the occasion to discover and live into otherwise realities and possibilities. While our troubles and challenges may be distinct, the fact that we live, move and strive to better ourselves beneath the pall of many troubles is, by no means, exceptional. If the academic study of religion teaches nothing else, it teaches that, for as long as people have preserved an account of their existence through art and language, we have attempted to account for the fact that our lives on this planet is braided by hope and trouble, faith and uncertainty, freedom and slavery, love and loss, life and death. Nearly every religious movement emerged within the wake of suffering, confusion, despondency and seemingly insurmountable societal differences. I look forward to unpacking these sacred, haunting accounts with students in order to think about how we might work upon the world as the world inevitably works upon us.
This is the sum of my research. How do we account for hauntings that cannot be suppressed? How do we? translate into language the horrors that rupture convenient narratives? How might we hold space with and for the witness of our dead who, though consigned to the grave, refuse to be silenced or quarantined? My research accounts for how people and communities, particularly Black folks living and creating within the region and shadow of many deaths, attempt to account for the haunted and surreal fact of our presence.
What advice do you have for college students today?
Take the time to find out who you are beyond your accomplishments and recognition. Using our accomplishments to define ourselves is the way all of us – myself included – achieved the professional success we enjoy today. But this method of accounting for our presence solely through the language of professional achievement, while often necessary, is ultimately insufficient. Who are you beyond your resumé and cover letter? We are all wondrously more than the sum of all our legible accomplishments. Honor yourself enough to begin the journey of learning who you are beyond the borders and boundaries assigned to you by so many others. Discovering who you are beyond your titles and achievements is a lifelong process that cannot be accomplished in four short years. I invite every student to begin to undertake a critical study themselves as early as possible.
I truly believe asking the hard, difficult questions about the why of your existence as early as possible will save you many troubles in the long run. Take care, be well, and I hope to see many of you soon!
