I am the Assistant Professor of Religious Studies-Christianity at Allegheny College, and an AAUW 2018-2019 American Dissertation Fellow. My research interests include the history and theology of American Pentecostalism, as well as the role of race, gender, and popular culture in American Christianity during the modern era. All of which came together in my dissertation entitled, "Life, Liberty, and the Practicality of Holiness: A Social Historical Examination of the Life and Work of Ida Bell Robinson."
I self-identify as a teacher-scholar. For me, this means that my research interest is part and parcel to my work in the classroom. To be an educator is a wonderful privilege. Every time I get to design and teach a course, I am fulfilling a dream. More importantly, every time I get to meet new students and cultivate a dynamic student-teacher relationship that contributes to their development as emerging scholars, I am fulfilling purpose.
My objective as a teacher is to foster a student-focused learning environment that both challenges and motivates students to develop their own learning interests and critical thinking skills. Specifically, through trusting student-teacher relationships and safe learning-centered classrooms, I see myself as partnering with my students as they develop into independent scholars living in a globalized world. Together, we face hard questions and wrestle with big ideas in ways that foster faith, engage history and culture, and challenge us to think and speak about religion and the Christian traditions respectfully and responsibly.
At the University of Dayton, I taught traditional undergraduate students in the Department of Religious Studies. When I am not acting in the role of teacher-scholar, I am enjoying the company of friends and family, volunteering at my local church, and attending concerts and shows.
Selected Publications
“The Practicality of Holiness: A Historical Examination of Class, Race, and Gender within Black Holiness Pentecostalism, Bishop Ida Bell Robinson, and the Mount Sinai Holy Church of America” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 41 (2019): 50-65.
“The Early Hymnody of the Apostolic Pentecostal Movement” Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity Vol5, No1 (2014): 43-64.
Book Reviews
Powered by Faith: Pentecostal Businesswomen in Harare, edited by Tapiwa Praise Mapuranga ,(Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2018) in Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Forthcoming, 2019.
The Spirit Driven Church: Signs of God’s Graceful Presence, by Terje Hegertun, (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2017) in Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, 40 (2018), 216-318.
Echoes of Insight: Past Perspectives and the Future of Christian Higher Education, by Patrick Allen and Kenneth Badley (Christian University Press, 2017) in Wabash Center's Reflective Teaching (Fall 2017). Found at https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/resources/book_reviews/echoes-of-insight-past-perspectives-and-the-future-of-christian-higher-education/
Pentecostal Modernism: Lovecraft, Los Angeles, and World-Systems Culture, by Stephen Shapiro and Philip Barnard (Bloomsbury, 2017) in Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, 39 (2017), 385-387.
Selected Presentations
“Ida Bell Robinson and Black Holiness Denominations” for panel on Twentieth Century American Pentecostal Women in Leadership at the American Society for Church History. Winter Meeting 2020. New York, NY January 2020
“Healing is the Children’s Bread: Healing as Theo-Political Resistance and Survival among Black Holiness Pentecostals in the Urban North during the Migration Era” at the American Academy of Religion National Meetings. San Diego, CA, November 2019
“Three Strikes Against Her-She was Black, a Woman, and a Pentecostal: Ida Bell Robinson and the Mount Sinai Holy Church of America, Inc. (1924-1946)” The 2018 Stander Symposium. University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, April 2018