 |
 |
 |
|
Emilie M. Townes, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology, is an American Baptist clergywoman and a native of Durham, North Carolina. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University. Dr. Townes is the first Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale University Divinity School. In the fall of 2005, she was elected to the vice presidency of the American Academy of Religion (AAR)—the largest professional society in the field of religion. She currently serves as president-elect and in 2008, she will become the first African American woman to serve as president of AAR. She is the former Carolyn Williams Beaird Professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. Editor of two collection of essays, A Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering and Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation; she has also authored Womanist Ethics, Womanist Hope, In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness, and Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care. Her most recent book, Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil, was released in November 2006. She continues her research on women and health in the African diaspora with attention to Brasil and the United States.
She teaches in the fields of Christian social ethics and African American religious communities. In addition to a full schedule of lecturing in seminary, college and university settings, she also lectures and leads workshops in local churches and denominational bodies on a regular basis. In academic settings, Townes works to show the theoretical and practical links between the study of Black religions and the other theological and academic disciplines. Her work highlights the ways in which interdisciplinary analysis and critique can break open new modes of thought, research, and conversations about the nature of oppression and our ability to eradicate it. In religious communities and in seminary settings, she encourages her students to think through the ways in which they can bring their faith and social witness into deep and abiding discipleship molded by faith, hope, love, and justice. At Yale, she is especially concerned with bringing together the religious resources of the community of New Haven and the alumni network with current students to help students gain hands on practical, pastoral, and prophetic experience in the various ministries of the church.