Workshop application: “Art Theology, Non-Violence, and Wisdom from Margins”

Statement of Interest:

I am delighted to submit my application to participate in the Workshop: “Art Theology, Non-Violence, and Wisdom from Margins.” My B.A. is in International Studies, with a focus on Peace and Conflict, my M.A. is in Art and Religion with a focus on artistic practice, especially improvisation, and my Ph.D. is in Practical Theology with a focus on migration, collaborative ethnography, and understandings of home and belonging. These three threads connect to the themes of non-violence, wisdom from marginal places, and art as theology that this workshop engages.

In particular, my M.A. thesis dealt with topics of Art Theology, though I did not have that language at the time. I explored practices of improvisation not only as spiritual practices, but as enacted and embodied theology. For example, art and improvisation can be understood through theologies of co-creating with God, of responding to God, and of understanding creation as both human and divine. I focused on musical and dance improvisation and would welcome this opportunity to delve into the visual arts as theology.

My current work centers practices of deep listening in community-engaged scholarship. This work continues to attend to dynamics of improvisation in order to pay attention to “wisdom from the margins” through listening and responding, co-creating, and engaging in practices that center belonging, compassion, and attunement over extractive methods of gathering information. This work takes time, space, and slowing down, all practices offered through Art Theology that could also serve to guide academic and ethnographic work in kinder and more attuned ways.

In addition, I am a certified professional coach and mindfulness mentor. I feel that these skills also lend themselves to the work of Art Theology, creativity and religion, and deep listening. I would welcome the opportunity to participate in this workshop and create, listen, and reflect together.

Curriculum Vitae:

CURRENT PROJECTS
• Co-Director, Lifeways of Hope Initiative, Center for Religion and Cities, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD
• Director, Fellowship in Public Scholarship, Center for Religion and Cities, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD
• Consultant, Afterlife of Sacred Spaces Project, Dr. Marquisha Scott, University of Denver
• Facilitator, Black Religion and Community Unification: Dialogue and Listening Across Black/African American Muslim and Christian Congregations, Art Spaces, and Community Organizing Collectives, Detroit, MI, The Henry Luce Foundation Initiative, Towards a Common Public Life
• Academic Editor, Conviviality in Motion, University of Basel, Switzerland

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
2017-2021 University of Basel, Switzerland, Ph.D., Practical Theology; Dissertation: Contested Home: Asylum-Seeking and Church
2011-2015 Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA, Master of Divinity (equivalency)
2004-2006 Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, M.A., Art and Religion; Thesis: Improvising the Sacred: Dance, Theology, and Culture
1996-1998 The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, B.A. in International Studies; Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2024 Contested Home: Asylum-Seeking and Church, Religion in Motion, vol. 2, Transcript Verlag, 2024 (forthcoming).
2022 Home as Place and Agency: Asylum-Seekers’ Perspectives and Church Practices, Theologische Zeitschrift, Theologischen Fakultät der Universität Basel, ThZ 1/78, 2022.
2019 Responding to the Loss of Home: Perspectives and Practices of Refugees in the Context of the Projekt DA-SEIN in Basel (Switzerland), with Dr. Andrea Bieler, in Religion and Migration: Negotiating Hospitality, Agency and Vulnerability, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt GmbH.
2007 Benedictine Spirituality and the Land, OCHRE: Journal of Women's Spirituality, Vol. 1.

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS AND WORKSHOPS
2023 To Research or Not: Reflections on Listening in Ethnographic Research, with Dr. Rupa Pillai, American Academy of Religion, Anthropology of Religion Unit, San Antonio, TX
2023 How We (Don't) Listen to Asylum-Seekers, American Academy of Religion, Western Region Conference, Davis, CA
2021 Home, Utopia, and Asylum-Seeking, Utopia and Migration: Renewing the Imagination of Borders in the 21st c., International Multidisciplinary Conference, Oxford, UK
2020 Leaving Home: Rites of Passage and the Refugee Experience, American Academy of Religion, Western Region Conference, online conference
2019 The Interview as a Site of Resistance, American Academy of Religion, Western Region Conference, Tempe, AZ
2017 The Practice of Hospitality: Migration, Welcome, and Religious Practice; Mesoamerican Studies Center Conference, University of California, Merced, CA
2015 Transformation through Transcendence, The Arts, Social Transformation, and Spirituality, Teaching Assistant, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA
2015 Theological Reflection in a Secular Age, American Academy of Religion, Western Region Conference, Santa Clara, CA
2011 Spirituality and the Arts, Workshop Leader, Mercy High School, San Francisco, CA
2005-2011 Sides of a Wall: A German-Jewish Story, dance-theater presentation, Performed in Berkeley, San Francisco, San Leandro, and Sonoma, CA
2008 Improvisational Play and American Life, Great Lakes American Studies Conference, Rochester, New York
2008 InterPlaying India: Improvisation as Intercultural Dialogue, The Politics of Play and Performance, California State University, Sacramento, CA