Associate Professor of Religion
Africana Religion in the Digital Age
As a Jeffrey Henderson Senior Research Fellow, I will complete my next manuscript, Africana Religion in the Digital Age, to be published in Routledge Studies in Religion and Digital Culture series. The project examines the variety of ways digital technology intersects with religious experiences of African Americans. Specifically, it considers how practitioners of Africana religions—traditions which include but are not limited to Voodoo, Hoodoo, Spiritualism, and Witchcraft—have used and continue to use digital interactive media like the Internet, social media, mobile applications, and gaming to express online and offline identities. While these “selves,” at times, are formed along lines of individuality and collectivity, other times they are represented as digitally based self-constructs that transcend personal and collective categorizations. Overall, the project will further complicate models of identity construction offered in Africana religious studies and digital religion studies.