THEME: African American Studies: Remembering the Past, Relevance for the Present, Sustaining the Future

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Stephanie Y. Mitchem

Professor, Director of African American Studies (PhD in Womanist Theology and African American Spirituality, Northwestern University, 1998)

Dr. Stephanie Y. Mitchem has a commitment to liberatory educational practice. She teaches contemporary theology and women's studies, emphasizing the experiences and perspectives of black women.

Dr. Mitchem shares a joint appointment with her home department of Religious Studies and with the Women's and Gender Studies Program at USC. She has recently been appointed Director of African American Studies Program.

PUBLICATIONS:

In Process

African Americans and Theologies of Prosperity (Pilgrim Press).

Faith, Health, and Healing Among African Americans, co-edited with Emilie M. Townes (Praeger).

Forthcoming

Book:
African American Folk Healing (New York University Press)

Chapters:
"African American Women's Embodied Spirituality and Cassandra" in Women and the Gift edited by Morny Joy (Indiana University Press)

"Finding Questions and Answers in Womanist Theology and Ethics," in conference proceedings edited by Rosemary Radford Ruether (Fortress Press).

"Religious Healing as Pedagogical Performance," in volume on teaching religious healing, edited by Linda Barnes and Inez Talamentez (Oxford University Press).

Books

African American Women Tapping Power and Spiritual Wellness (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2004).

Introducing Womanist Theology, (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2002).

GENERAL RESEARCH INTERESTS:

• Contemporary religious thought, with emphasis on feminist and anthropological/ethnographic methodologies Women in the African Diaspora.

• Postcolonialism, class, and African American religious thought and experience