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Dr. Mitzi J. Smith's guests are Drs. Oluwatomisin Oredein and Lakisha Lockhart-Rusch, the co-editors of Theopoetics in Color: Embodied Approaches to Theological Discourses (Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans, 2024). Available at Amazon.com, Eerdman's publishing, and other book sellers.

Dr. Oluwatomisin Oredein is Assistant Professor in Black Religious Traditions, Constructive Theology and Ethics at Brite Divinity School, Texas. Dr. Oredein is a graduate of The University of Virginia (BA) and Duke Divinity School (MDiv). She completed her ThD at Duke in Theology and Ethics in May 2017. Her dissertation examined the theology and ethics of Mercy Oduyoye, which is the first time someone has focused this kind of attention on this theologian. In order to follow up on this work, she is in the process of completing a book which is tentatively titled, Mercy, Me: The Theo-Feminism of Mercy Amba Oduyoye. In addition, Dr. Oredein has contributed several articles to academic and professional journals, chapters and essays in edited volumes, and has published several pieces of poetry. She is already taking leadership in the academy and guild by providing lectures and presentations at meetings and has participated in workshops at the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology. Dr. Oredein is a Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, USA.

Dr. Lakisha Lockhart-Rusch is Assistant Professor of Christian Education at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, VA. Lockhart’s research interests are in the areas of religious education; practical, liberation, and Womanist theologies; ethics and society; multiple intelligences; embodied faith and pedagogies; theological aesthetics’ theopoetics; creativity, imagination, and play. Her teaching takes seriously the benefits and necessity of play, movement, aesthetics, creative arts, and embodiment. For Lockhart, the body is a locus for doing theology and theological reflection.

She has authored and co-authored numerous publications and book chapters, including United Against Racism: Churches for Change: Facilitator’s Guide; “Enfleshing Catechesis Through Embodied Space” in the book Together Along the Way: Conversations Inspired by the Directory for Catechesis“; “Let’s Dance: Zumba and the Imago Dei of Beautiful Black Bodies” in The Other Journal: An Intersection of Theology & Culture; and “My Wildest Dream: A Letter to My Black Son” in Religious Education. Lockhart also was featured in the “Just Womanist” series for The Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership.

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In Season 2, Episode 5, podcast host welcomes co-editors and contributors of the special issue of the African Journal of Gender and Religion entitled "Black Women's Radical Religious Epistemologies in Mahogany & Steepled Towers."

Co-editors:
Dr. CL Nash is a Political Theology Research Felow at the University of Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Science and a recent recipient of the prestigioous JIAS Writing Fellowship. Nash directs the Misogynoir to Mishpat ("hatred of Black women to justice") Research Network.

Dr. Geeta Patel is an interdisciplinary scholar, poet/translator, curator, and writer-activist, with degrees in three sciences, philosophy, and South Asian Studies. Institutional Affiliation: University of Virginia

Contributors:
Dr. Anna Perkins ("On/Unstained White Dress(es)...: Afro- Caribbean Female Purity in Sacred Spaces in Three Caribbean Women Poets") is a Senior Programme Officer with the Quality Assurance Unit, Office of the Board for Undergraduate Studies, University of the West Indies. Perkins earned a PhD in ethics.

Dr. Clementine Nishimwe ("Doing Church Differently: Crafting a Church Using the Circle's Theologizing Methodologies in a Xenophobic and Gendered Context") is a postdoctoral researcher at Åbo Akademi University in Finland.

Dr. Claudette Anderson ("Obeah/Obia by Igbo Spelling: Affirming the Value of After God is Dibia") is Executive Director and Professor of Ọbịa at Unụchi Foundation, an Afro-Atlantic Religious Reparations nonprofit.

You can find the petition mentioned in the podcast on Change.org under Repeal 1898 Obeah Law.

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Podcast Host, Dr. Mitzi J. Smith's guest is Dr. DeAnna M. Daniels. She is Assistant Professor of Africana and Religious Studies at the University of Arizona. In 2023 Dr. Daniels earned her Ph.D. in Religion with a concentration in African American Religion from Rice University. Her scholarly interests are diverse, focusing on Black religion, the intersections of gender and sexuality, Black speculative fiction and horror, popular and visual culture, and art and aesthetics. Additionally, her research engages critical theory, disability theory, Black studies, and cultural studies. In this episode we discuss horror and religion and what each has to say to the other and about Black women.

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In Episode 3 of Season 2, Podcast host, Dr. Mitzi J. Smith talks with Rev. Dr. Tijuana Gray (DMin, Columbia Theological Seminary) about her completed doctor of ministry project: "Queer Black Women Preaching: Womanist Thought as a Tool for Normalizing Uncomfortable Conversations."

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In Season 2, Episode 2, podcast host Dr. Mitzi J. Smith discusses the film "The Book of Clarence" with Drs. Amy Lindeman Allen (Assoc. Prof. of New Testament at Christian Theological Seminary, IN) , Kyle Brooks (Visiting Asst. Prof. of Theology and Religious Studies at the Univ. of San Diego), and Tina Pippin (Prof. of Bible & Religion at Agnes Scott College). The film written in the Black radical imagination focuses on the journey and evolution of Clarence, the twin brother of the apostle Thomas. We discuss the racial, gendered, political, theological, christological, pedagogical, and ethical dimensions and implications of this film that unambiguously centers the Black imagination. The film is available Netflix.

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Podcast host Dr. Mitzi J. Smith interviews Dr. Dianne Stewart about her book Black Women, Black Love: America's War on Africa American Marriage (Seal, 2020). This is an important study of the systematic and unrelenting terroristic attack on Black love and marriage through the capture of Africans, enslavement, emancipation, reconstruction, civil rights era and in the present. We discuss the negative and debilitating impact of Christian theology and uncritical readings of the Bible support problematic patriarchal marriage and partnerships. Dr. Stewart's website is https://www.diannemstewart.com/about .

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In this episode 21 podcast host Dr. Mitzi J. Smith talks with Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems about the 18 tenets of Africana Womanism, which is a term Hudson-Weems conceptualized. The sixth edition of Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems' classic text Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves will be published this year by Routledge. Dr. Hudson-Weems is Professor of English at University of Missouri. She was the first to argue that the lynching of Emmett Till was the impetus for the civil rights movement. Her recently published edited volume Africana-Melanated Womanism: In It Together (Cambridge Scholars) is available from Amazon and other book sellers.

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In Episode 20, podcast host Dr. Mitzi J. Smith dialogues with Dr. Kenneth Ngwa, Prof of Hebrew Bible, Drew University Theological School, about his new book Let My People Live: An Africana Reading of Exodus (Westminster John Knox, 2022). Dr. Ngwa's book is available from the publisher, Amazon.com, and other book sellers. He is founder and director of the Religion and Global Health Forum at Drew and founder of "Never Stop Breathing," a research and praxis organization working at the interface of racial, social, and health justice.

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