Darrius D Hills
Grinnell College, Religious Studies, Faculty Member
- Philosophy and Religious Studies, Womanist Theology, Black Male Studies, African American Literature, Black Studies Or African American Studies, African American Religions, and 5 moreBlack Theology, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion and Hip Hop, Religion and Popular Culture, and Critical Race Theory and Whiteness theoryedit
- Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Grinnell College. Research interests include Theology,... moreAssociate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Grinnell College.
Research interests include Theology, Philosophy of Religion, African American Religion, womanist religious thought, black male studies, religion and race in American society, American Christianities, gender and religion, religion and culture, and religion and hip hop.edit
This essay considers the religious implications of White nationalist thinking on the preservation of Confederate material culture-its statues, monuments, and spaces. I argue that such Confederate material cultural artifacts represent... more
This essay considers the religious implications of White nationalist thinking on the preservation of Confederate material culture-its statues, monuments, and spaces. I argue that such Confederate material cultural artifacts represent racial holy sites around which American White nationalists collectively reassert and reclaim a distinctive identity, amplify a message of protectionist racial and cultural survival, and further distinguish themselves as a set-apart group. By examining Lost Cause ideology in tandem with Emile Durkheim's framing of totemic religiosity, White nationalist appropriation of Confederate sites therefore constitutes a ritual exercise promoting group solidarity and coherence. The implications of Whiteness's totemic properties matter both for understanding the experience of non-White bodies and for how these experiences contribute to the study of religion and race in America.
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Studies in higher education and womanist scholarship have shown that black women in academia are pressed to shoulder a matrix of raced and gendered expectations and perceptions that negatively impact their personal and professional... more
Studies in higher education and womanist scholarship have shown that black women in academia are pressed to shoulder a matrix of raced and gendered expectations and perceptions that negatively impact their personal and professional quality of life. In this essay, I bring these two sources together to underscore the urgency of this issue and the imperative for all persons, and especially black men, to rise to the challenge. My essay consists of three parts: 1) a discussion of the history and function of "Mammy" as a trope of black womanhood and its manifestation as a significant problem for black women in academia; 2) an interpretation of Emilie Townes's notion of communal lament among black women scholars and colleagues as an extension of self-care and as a practice of resistance; 3) a recommendation for male scholars to share the burdens of black women scholars through dialogue in the work of solidarity.
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Martin Luther King believed that the civil rights struggles of Blacks were in one sense importantly American but also part of a worldwide movement against colonialism. As King once noted, Black Power is “the cry of the unheard.” Such... more
Martin Luther King believed that the civil rights struggles of Blacks were in one sense importantly American but also part of a worldwide movement against colonialism. As King once noted, Black Power is “the cry of the unheard.” Such expressions of angst extend themselves beyond U.S. borders and thus characterize the existential crises of all oppressed communities. Through this observation, King argues that this international perspective is the definition of Black Power and is a universal call for justice, which he engages as the transition from “thingification” to personhood. #BlackLivesMatter is the theopolitical demand for Black personhood, which we believe to be housed in King’s philosophy of Black Power. Using interpretations of oppression from Black and womanist theologies, this article provides a reconfiguration of King’s expansion of Black Power into global terrain and considers how this approach is timely, given the desensitization toward the killing of Black female and male bodies.
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Roger Sneed's The Dreamer and the Dream interrogates the transcendence and disruption of truncated and constipated expressions of Black religious experience. Envisioning an Afrofuturistic turn in Black religious discourse, Sneed is... more
Roger Sneed's The Dreamer and the Dream interrogates the transcendence and disruption of truncated and constipated expressions of Black religious experience. Envisioning an Afrofuturistic turn in Black religious discourse, Sneed is indebted to Victor Anderson's powerful critiques offered in Creative Exchange (2008) and Beyond Ontological Blackness (1999). Afrofuturism is responsive to the cultural ingratiation of White supremacy, but is unbound to the dictates of Whiteness as an ideological, cultural, and social frame of reference for either Black humanity or religious experience. Drawing upon the same cultural and intellectual zeitgeist guiding Black religious thought as an iconoclastic response to White religio-racial constructs, Sneed argues that Afrofuturistic religious orientations explode and reimagine Black religious meaning-making. The opening chapters discuss race in popular culture and science fiction, and spotlight pioneering thinkers who fuse Black religion and Afrofuturism. Citing the paucity of Black representation in popular science fiction, Sneed critiques the adjunct status of Blacks in shows like Star Trek, illustrating the need for greater diversity in popular science fiction. The second chapter clarifies the major thrust of his project, namely that Afrofuturism functions as another powerful space for Black religious reflection. Afrofuturism as Black religious discourse extends "beyond repeated analyses of the Black church and tradition from Black liberation and womanist theologies" (36), thereby providing a needed intervention in the scope of Black religious studies. Chapters 3 and 4 interrogate literary and film representations of Afrofuturism. Starting with writer Octavia Butler and music artist Janelle Monae, Sneed positions both as intersectional Afrofuturists who critique contemporary modes of oppression and generate new frames for identity formation. Butler and Monae both work within creative paradigms that embrace complex explorations of race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. Butler's fiction adopts a feminist vision-notably in the Parable series and especially The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents-highlighting female protagonists that challenge the restrictive constraints of heteropatriarchy (55). The Parables also highlight an enfleshed and lived religiosity (the new religion called "Earthseed"), that aspires to the creation and sustenance of Black futures that is both prophetic in its warnings to societies beset by tribalism, but also attuned to the role(s) of human beings in protecting the web-like nature of planetary life. As a "queer Afrofuturistic manifesto," (62) the science fiction-based and queer themes of Janelle Monae's discographies are tropes for (Black) self-discovery in the age of intelligent machines that spotlight fluid gender identity and sexual formation.
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ABSTRACT The 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the United States necessitates an interrogation of complex and interlocking constructs of race and religion, and the impact on racial and religious minorities. In this paper, I... more
ABSTRACT The 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the United States necessitates an interrogation of complex and interlocking constructs of race and religion, and the impact on racial and religious minorities. In this paper, I describe the social situation of “White loss”, which I understand to be the existential crisis of White Christians in light of myriad issues, including, a globalized society, a precarious economy, and the declining of racial and religious majority status. The first half of the paper discusses both religious and racial demographic shifts that intensify White loss, and the role that Trump plays in ameliorating these racial and religious anxieties. The essay concludes with a reading of Trump and White, evangelical Christians' authoritarian theological constructs through Howard Thurman's notions of neighborliness and estrangement.
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Abstract:Studies in higher education and womanist scholarship have shown that black women in academia are pressed to shoulder a matrix of raced and gendered expectations and perceptions that negatively impact their personal and... more
Abstract:Studies in higher education and womanist scholarship have shown that black women in academia are pressed to shoulder a matrix of raced and gendered expectations and perceptions that negatively impact their personal and professional quality of life. In this essay, I bring these two sources together to underscore the urgency of this issue and the imperative for all persons, and especially black men, to rise to the challenge. My essay consists of three parts: 1) a discussion of the history and function of "Mammy" as a trope of black womanhood and its manifestation as a significant problem for black women in academia; 2) an interpretation of Emilie Townes's notion of communal lament among black women scholars and colleagues as an extension of self-care and as a practice of resistance; 3) a recommendation for male scholars to share the burdens of black women scholars through dialogue in the work of solidarity.
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Research Interests: Black Church and DREAM
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: This essay considers the religious implications of White nationalist thinking on the preservation of Confederate material culture—its statues, monuments, and spaces. I argue that such Confederate material cultural artifacts represent... more
: This essay considers the religious implications of White nationalist thinking on the preservation of Confederate material culture—its statues, monuments, and spaces. I argue that such Confederate material cultural artifacts represent racial holy sites around which American White nationalists collectively reassert and reclaim a distinctive identity, amplify a message of protectionist racial and cultural survival, and further distinguish themselves as a set-apart group. By examining Lost Cause ideology in tandem with Emile Durkheim's framing of totemic religiosity, White nationalist appropriation of Confederate sites therefore constitutes a ritual exercise promoting group solidarity and coherence. The implications of Whiteness's totemic properties matter both for understanding the experience of non-White bodies and for how these experiences contribute to the study of religion and race in America. Resumen: Este ensayo analiza las implicaciones religiosas del pensamiento nacionalista blanco en la conservación de la cultura material confederada: sus estatuas, monumentos y espacios. Sostengo que dichos artefactos representan lugares sagrados raciales en torno a los cuales los nacionalistas blancos estadounidenses reafirman y reclaman colectivamente una identidad distintiva, amplifican un mensaje de supervivencia racial y cultural proteccionista y se distinguen aún más como grupo aparte. Al examinar la ideología de la Causa Perdida junto con el concepto de religiosidad totémica de Emile Durkheim, la apropiación de los lugares confederados por parte de los nacionalistas blancos constituye un ejercicio ritual que promueve la solidaridad y la coherencia del grupo. Las implicaciones de las propiedades totémicas de la blancura son importantes tanto para la comprensión de la experiencia de los cuerpos no blancos como para el modo en que estas experiencias contribuyen al estudio de la religión y la raza en Estados Unidos.
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Research Interests: Black Church and DREAM
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ABSTRACT The 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the United States necessitates an interrogation of complex and interlocking constructs of race and religion, and the impact on racial and religious minorities. In this paper, I... more
ABSTRACT The 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the United States necessitates an interrogation of complex and interlocking constructs of race and religion, and the impact on racial and religious minorities. In this paper, I describe the social situation of “White loss”, which I understand to be the existential crisis of White Christians in light of myriad issues, including, a globalized society, a precarious economy, and the declining of racial and religious majority status. The first half of the paper discusses both religious and racial demographic shifts that intensify White loss, and the role that Trump plays in ameliorating these racial and religious anxieties. The essay concludes with a reading of Trump and White, evangelical Christians' authoritarian theological constructs through Howard Thurman's notions of neighborliness and estrangement.
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African Americans and their ancestors have been subjected to forms of violence premised upon the supremacy of the state as ultimate, JOAR 3.4_03_RoundTable.indd 443 22/09/15 4:49 PM
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This article explores constructions of meaning and Black male identity formation as portrayed in the film Black Panther. Interpreted through the prism of Black religious thought, ethics, and Africana framings of relationality, Black... more
This article explores constructions of meaning and Black male identity formation as portrayed in the film Black Panther. Interpreted through the prism of Black religious thought, ethics, and Africana framings of relationality, Black Panther provides insight into the nature and terms of identity formation and meaning-making as critical features of Black religion broadly conceived.
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Abstract:Studies in higher education and womanist scholarship have shown that black women in academia are pressed to shoulder a matrix of raced and gendered expectations and perceptions that negatively impact their personal and... more
Abstract:Studies in higher education and womanist scholarship have shown that black women in academia are pressed to shoulder a matrix of raced and gendered expectations and perceptions that negatively impact their personal and professional quality of life. In this essay, I bring these two sources together to underscore the urgency of this issue and the imperative for all persons, and especially black men, to rise to the challenge. My essay consists of three parts: 1) a discussion of the history and function of "Mammy" as a trope of black womanhood and its manifestation as a significant problem for black women in academia; 2) an interpretation of Emilie Townes's notion of communal lament among black women scholars and colleagues as an extension of self-care and as a practice of resistance; 3) a recommendation for male scholars to share the burdens of black women scholars through dialogue in the work of solidarity.
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Martin Luther King believed that the civil rights struggles of Blacks were in one sense importantly American but also part of a worldwide movement against colonialism. As King once noted, Black Power is “the cry of the unheard.” Such... more
Martin Luther King believed that the civil rights struggles of Blacks were in one sense importantly American but also part of a worldwide movement against colonialism. As King once noted, Black Power is “the cry of the unheard.” Such expressions of angst extend themselves beyond U.S. borders and thus characterize the existential crises of all oppressed communities. Through this observation, King argues that this international perspective is the definition of Black Power and is a universal call for justice, which he engages as the transition from “thingification” to personhood. #BlackLivesMatter is the theopolitical demand for Black personhood, which we believe to be housed in King’s philosophy of Black Power. Using interpretations of oppression from Black and womanist theologies, this article provides a reconfiguration of King’s expansion of Black Power into global terrain and considers how this approach is timely, given the desensitization toward the killing of Black female and male bodies.
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Foreword Kelly Brown Douglas Introduction: Framing the Problem George Yancy 1. What Jesus Wouldn't Do: A White Theologian Engages Whiteness Karen Teel 2. Grotesque Un/Knowing of Suffering: A White Christian Response Laurie M. Cassidy... more
Foreword Kelly Brown Douglas Introduction: Framing the Problem George Yancy 1. What Jesus Wouldn't Do: A White Theologian Engages Whiteness Karen Teel 2. Grotesque Un/Knowing of Suffering: A White Christian Response Laurie M. Cassidy 3. Jesus Must Needs Go Through Samaria: Dis-Establishing the Mountains of Race and the Hegemony of Whiteness Cheryl Townsend Gilkes 4. The Black Church and Whiteness: Looking for Jesus in Strange Places Moni McIntyre 5. What Would Zacchaeus Do? The Case for Disidentifying with Jesus Jennifer Harvey 6. Is Christ White? Racism and Christology Rosemary Radford Ruether 7. When a White Man-God is the Truth and the Way for Black Christians Traci West 8. Who Belongs to Christ? Josiah Young 9. Upstart Messiahs, Renegade Samaritans, and Temple Exorcisms: What Can Jesus' Peasant Resistance Movement in 1st Century Palestine Teach Us About Confronting "Color-Blind" Whiteness Today? James W. Perkinson 10. Jesus, Whiteness, and the Disinherited William David Hart 11. Looking Like Me?: Jesus Images, Christology, and the Limitations of Theological Blackness Anthony B. Pinn 12. The (Black) Jesus of Detroit: Reflections on Black Power and the (White) American Christ M. Shawn Copeland 13. The Mimesis of Salvation and Dissimilitude in the Scandalous Gospel of Jesus Victor Anderson