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Curriculum Vitae

Education

 

Ph.D. Vanderbilt University, Religion

2011 - 2017

 

  • ​Theological Studies, minor in Ethics & Society

  • Dissertation: Who is the We? Theological Method & Formation in a Queer Time & Place

    • ​Committee: Ellen Armour (chair), Laurel Schneider, Paul
      Dehart, Melissa Snarr (minor advisor), and Kent Brintnall (external reader). 

 

M.A. Vanderbilt University, Religion

2011 - 2015

  • ​Theological Studies (M.A. in passing)

 

A.M. Duke University, the Humanities, summa cum laude 

​2010 - 2011

  • ​Comparative Literature, minor in Religion

  • Thesis: An Apocalyptic Ethic of Race: Bonhoeffer, Foucault, & Fanon

    • ​Advisors: J. Kameron Carter, Willie Jennings

 

M.Div. Duke University, magna cum laude

​2007-2010

  • ​Thesis: Victimless Cruciformity: Queering Submission through a Transgressive Reading of the Lord's Supper 

    • ​Advisors: Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Amy Laura Hall 

 

B.A. Azusa Pacific University, Psychology, cum laude

​2002-2006

 

B.A. Azusa Pacific University, Biblical Studies

​2002-2006

Graduate Certificates

Vanderbilt: 

  • Certificate in Women's & Gender Studies 

  • Certificate in College Teaching

 

Duke: 

  • Certificate in African & African-American Studies

  • Certificate in Gender, Theology, & Ministry

Languages
  • French (reading proficiency)

  • German (reading proficiency)

 

Affiliations
  • Under-care for ordained ministry, Disciples of Christ (Christian Church)

  • Student member, American Academy of Religion

  • Student member, Society of Christian Ethics

  • Student member, National Women’s Studies Association

  • Member, Psi Chi Honor Society

 
Chapters in edited volumes: 

 

“Queer Theory.” In Embodied Religion: Bodies, Sex and Sexuality (Handbook on the Study of Religion). Eds. Kent Brintnall and Anthony Pinn. New York: Palgrave MacMillian, forthcoming 2016. 26 pages.

 

“Excess and the Enactment of Queer Time: Futurity, Failure, and Formation in Feminist  Theologies.” In Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies. Eds. Stephen Moore, Kent Brintnall, and Joseph Marchal. New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming 2016. 22 pages.

 

“Virtue with No After? Theological Ethics in a Queer Time & Space.” In Queering Theology’s Object: Redefining the Quest for God. Eds. Colby Dickinson and Aimée Upjohn Light. Forthcoming 2016. 24 pages.

 

“Getting Lost at Sea? Apophasis, Antisociality, and the (In-)Stability of Academic Theology.” In Remaking Doctrine: Sarah Coakley and the Future of Systematic Theology. Eds. Benjamin Myers and Janice McRandall. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, forthcoming 2015. 38 pages.

 

“Ethics Beyond Biopower: Bonhoeffer, Foucault, and the Problem of Race.” In Ontology and Ethics: Bonhoeffer and Contemporary Scholarship. Eds. Adam Clark and Michael Mawson. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013. 150-162.  

 

Articles in peer-reviewed journals:

 

“Grace Beyond Nature? Beyond Embodiment as Essentialism: A Christological Critique.” Feminist Theology, forthcoming 2016. 22 pages. 

 

“Ekstasis as (Beyond?) Jouissance: Sex, Queerness, and Apophaticism in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.” Theology and Sexuality 20, no. 2 (2014): 1-20.

 

“Is Kinship Always Already Reproductive? An Ecclesiological, Poststructuralist Account.” Theology and Sexuality 18, no. 3 (2012): 173-195.

 

“A Poststructuralist Liberation Theology? Queer Theory & Apophaticism.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 64, nos. 2 &3 (2013): 108-117.

 

Essays/Public Scholarship:

 

“On Failure and Formation.” Roundtable on Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure. In The Other Journal 24: Geography, August 5, 2015.

 

“Is Reform Enough? The Limits and Possibilities of Eucharistic Theology.” Roundtable on Amy Levad’s Redeeming a Prison Theology. Syndicate Theology: A New Forum for Theology, January 26, 2015.

 

“Trayvon Martin & Theological Imagination: Activism, Anti-Racist Work, and the Academy.” The Spire: Vanderbilt Divinity School magazine 5, no.1, August 19, 2013.

 

“Come Walk with Us, the Journey is Long: An Interview with C. Melissa Snarr on the Living Wage Campaign, Occupy Wall Street, and Religious Activism.” The Other Journal 20: Evil, May 16, 2012.

 

“Peeing in Peace and Proximity: The Work of Durham Unstalled.” The Triangle: LGBTQ Resources for the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill Area 1, no. 11 (March 2011), 7-8.

 

“Stop Policing the Borders of Christianity.” Religion Dispatches, November 15, 2010.

 

“The Academy, the Polis, and the Resurgence of Religion: An Interview with Graham Ward.” The Other Journal 12: Education, November 18, 2008.

 

“LGBT Activism through Koinonia: My Experience in the Soulforce Equality Ride.” The Community Psychologist 40, no. 3 (2007), 15-16.

 

Reviews:

 

Review of Tom Greggs, Theology against Religion: Constructive Dialogues with Bonhoeffer and Barth (New York: T&T Clark, 2011). Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, forthcoming 2015. 

 

Review of Florence + the Machine, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (Island Records, 2015). Religious Studies News, forthcoming 2015.

 

Review of Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012). Practical Matters 9 (September 2015).

Publications

 

Presentations
Invited Responses/Presentations:

 

Panelist, “The Bar/Bedroom as Liturgy’s Rectum/Lips: In Search of Christianity’s Catachrestic Heterotopias.” Author-Meets Critics Session with Lynne Huffer, Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (Atlanta, GA), November 2015.

 

Panelist, “Iyala Vanzant, Black Women’s Spirituality, and the Oprah Effect: Straddling and Merging Religious Difference.” Roundtable on Antoinette Brown Lecture by Monica Coleman, Vanderbilt Divinity School (Nashville, TN), March 2013.

 

Representative, Valapraiso Consultation on Practice-Related Doctoral Programs, Duke University (Durham, NC), April 2012.

 

Panelist, “Grafted into the Community: Gentiles and LGBTQ Christians.” Panel on Homosexuality and the Church, Duke Divinity School (Durham, NC), March 2008.

 

Conference Papers: 

 

“The Dissonance and Injury of Moral Clarity (and the Moral Freedom of Dissonance): On the Inevitability of Moral Injury in Virtue-Ethical Frameworks.” Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion (Atlanta, GA), November 2015.

 

“Practical Theology and the Shift from Prison Reform to Prison Abolition: The Liberation of Theo-Ethical Reflections on Incarceration.” Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion (Atlanta, GA), November 2015.

 

“Just Shameful(-ly Good) Sex.” Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion (Atlanta, GA), November 2015.

 

“Towards Heterodox Heterotopias? Queer-feminist theory and practice in postmodern Christian theology.” Subverting the Norm III-Political Perspectives on Postmodern Theology & Church Practice (Springfield, MO), November 2015.

 

“Astonished Contemplation and/as Askesis.” Institute for Interdisciplinary Inquiry Inaugural Conference: Re-Visioning Space(s), Times, and Bodies (New South Wales, Sydney), April 2015.

 

“Theological Method & a Virtue with No After.” Virginia Graduate Colloquium in Theology, Ethics, and Culture - Center or Vanishing Point: Perspectives on Religion and Theology (Charlottesville, VA), March 2015.

 

“Towards a Post-Moral, Erotic (Theological) Ethic: On Huffer, Muñoz, and Bonhoeffer.” Syracuse University Graduate Religious Conference - Religious Interruptus: The Affects of Sex, Politics, and Bodies (Syracuse, NY), February 2015.

 

“An Antisocial, Afro-Pessimist Sociality? Envisioning Kinship and Belonging Beyond Assimilation.” Annual Conference of the AAR (San Diego, CA), November 2014.

 

“Agitating Tilling the Soil? Rethinking Gendered Subjectivity in Feminist Theology.” Annual Conference of the AAR (San Diego, CA), November 2014.

 

“Askesis, Agency, and (Queer) Bodies: Trans-Feminisms and the Ethics of Embodiment.” National Women’s Studies Association Annual Meeting (San Juan, Puerto Rico), November 2014.

 

“Who’s the We? Excess and the Enactment of Queer Time.” Drew Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquium - Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies (Madison, NJ), September 2014.

 

“After Hope? Or, What is the Future? Agency, Antisociality, & Eschatological Ethics.” Revolting Peripheries International Conference (Bielsko-Biala, Poland), June 2014.

 

“Building Up and Breaking Down: Sociality, Social Justice, and the Self in Womanism and Feminism.” Annual Conference of the AAR (Baltimore, MD), November 2013.

 

“Jouissance as Ekstasis: Sex, Queer Identity, and Apophaticism in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.” Annual Conference of the AAR (Baltimore, MD), November 2013.

 

“Relationality beyond Biopower: Reframing Kinship.” Philosophia Feminist Society Annual Meeting (Banff, Alberta), May 2013.

 

“A Queer Defense of Monogamy: (Anti-) Normativity, Eschatology, and Marriage.” Princeton Theological Seminary Koinonia Forum (Princeton, NJ), March 2013.

 

“An Eschatological Constructivism? Karl Barth and Judith Butler on the Relationship between Nature and Grace.” Southeastern Regional Meeting of the AAR (Greenville, SC), March 2013.

 

“Is Kinship Always Already Reproductive? Ecclesiology, Ethics, and the Antisocial Thesis.” Annual Conference of the AAR (Chicago, IL), November 2012.

“Belonging & Border Logic: Scripture, Theology, and LGBTQ Suicide.” Southeastern Regional Meeting of the AAR (Atlanta, GA), March 2012.

 

“Producing a People? Balibar and Bonhoeffer on (Theological) Education, Ecclesia, and the Ethnic.” Princeton Theological Seminary Koinonia Forum (Princeton, NJ), February 2012.

 

“An Apophatic Liberation Theology? Queer Theory & the Trinity.” Union Theological Seminary Graduate Student Conference (New York, NY), February 2012.

 

“Ethics Beyond Biopower: Bonhoeffer, Foucault, and the Problem of Race.” Notre Dame Graduate Student Conference: New Conversations on Bonhoeffer’s Theology (South Bend, IN), April 2011.

 

“The Inscriptive Surface of the Body: Our Bodies and Christ’s Body as Theological Text.” Southeastern Regional Meeting of the AAR (Louisville, KY), March 2011.

 

“Violence against Women and Missiological Paradigms: Problems with an Ecclesiocentric Model and Potentialities with Apocalyptic.” Wesleyan Theological Society Annual Conference (Dallas, TX), March 2011.

 

“The (Sexed) Body between Barth and Butler: A Theological Engagement with Elizabeth Grosz’s Volatile Bodies.” Mid-Atlantic/New England-Maritimes Regional Meeting of the AAR (New Brunswick, NJ), February 2011.

Teaching
Experience
Grants, Awards, & Honors
 
Vanderbilt University Divinity School:

 

  • Teaching Assistant, Feminist and Womanist Theologies, Spring 2014

  • Teaching Assistant, Worship in the Anglican Tradition, May 2013

  • Teaching Assistant, Ethics in a Theological Perspective, Spring 2013

  • Teaching Assistant, Constructive Theology, Fall 2012

 

Vanderbilt University Program for Talented Youth:

 

  • Instructor, “Pop Culture and Philosophy,” Summer 2015

    • Vanderbilt Summer Academy (Rising 8th graders)

    • Saturday Academy at Vanderbilt for the Young (Rising 6th and 7th graders)

 

Adjunct/Additional Experience: 

 

  • Part-Time Lecturer, Knowledge & Power: Issues in Women’s Leadership, Fall 2015

    • Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  • Teaching Assistant, Theology & Theological Language, Summer 2014

    • Lexington Theological Seminary (online)

  • Instructor, “Theologies of Punishment,” Spring 2014

    • Riverbend Maximum Security Prison

 

 
 
Fellowships & Scholarships: 

 

  • Theology and Practice fellowship, Vanderbilt University, 2011-2017

  • Harold Stirling fellowship, Vanderbilt University, 2011-2016

  • Anne E. Dickerson scholarship, Disciples of Christ Higher Education Ministries, 2012

  • Ned & Carmen Haggard scholarship, Duke University, 2007-2010

  • Pew Younger fellowship, 2004-2006

  • Mayr Foundation scholarship, Azusa Pacific University, 2002-2006

  • Presidential Academic scholarship, Azusa Pacific University, 2002-2006

 
Grants: 

 

  • Graduate student presenter travel grant, Vanderbilt University, 2012-2015

  • Summer research grant, Vanderbilt University, 2012-2014

  • E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation grant, Vanderbilt University, 2012-2014

 

Awards:

 

  • Susan Ford Wiltshire award, best graduate student essay, Vanderbilt University, 2013

  • Violet Richardson award for outstanding service, Soroptomist International, 2007

 
Academic/Professional Honors & Experiences: 

 

  • American Academy of Religion pilot mentoring program, 2013-2014

  • Leading Faithfully Institute, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice, 2013

  • Human Rights Campaign Summer Institute in Religion & Sexuality, 2011

  • Human Rights Campaign Emerging LGBTQ Leaders Program, 2010

  • Dean’s List, Azusa Pacific University, 2002-2006

 
Additional (irrelevant but fun) Honors & Awards: 

 

  • Listener Limerick Challenge winner, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me!, 2015

  • Goofy Challenge (half + full marathon) weekend finisher, 2015

  • Ocala Half-Iron distance triathlon finisher, 2013

  • NC Rollergirls Debutante Brawlers derby team MVP, 2009

  • Time Magazine Person of the Year, 2006

  • Pastry Chicago Cupcake Competition second runner-up, 2006

  • Sandberg Middle School summer reading contest winner, 1996-1997

 

 
Service
 
Academic & Professional Service: 

 

  • Women in Theology blog, contributor, 2013-present

  • Syndicate Theology, contributor & advisor, 2013-present

  • Queer Studies Section of the AAR, steering committee member, 2013-2016

  • Women & Gender Studies in Religion section of Southeast regional AAR, 2012-2015

  • Vanderbilt Writing Studio, graduate writing consultant, 2014-2015

  • Antoinette Brown lecture series, planning committee member, 2012-2014

  • American Academy of Religion Speaking of Students column editor, 2012-2014

  • An un für sich blog, contributor, 2011-2013

  • The Other Journal, theology editor, 2011-2013

  • Theology & Sexuality journal, peer reviewer, 2013

  • Duke University Writing Center, tutor, 2010-2011

  • Duke Office of Institutional Equity, administrative diversity project research lead, 2009

  • The Women’s Center at Duke Divinity School, co-coordinator, 2007-2010

  • Duke University Harassment Grievance Board member, 2007-2009

 

Ecclesial & Community Service: 

 

  • Nashville Sexual Assault Center, Hospital Accomplice Program, volunteer, 2014-2015

  • Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, volunteer chaplain, 2013-2014

  • Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation, mentor, 2010-2012

  • Calvary United Methodist, ministerial intern, 2009-2010

  • Emmaus Way Church, leadership team, 2007-2009

  • LGBTQ Triangle Helpline, call center volunteer, 2007-2009

  • Soulforce Equality Ride, media director, 2006-2007

 

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