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Religious Studies and Philosophy

Sentences that come directly from the article are in quotation marks. CSUN students, faculty, and staff can access most articles through the University Library using CSUN credentials. Please use the library’s interlibrary loan services if an article of interest is not available.

Bausell, S. B., Staton, T. A., & Hughes, S. (2020). Out of site, out of mind: The evolving significance of race in the story of an early quaker-freedmen school. American Educational Research Journal, 57(4), 1730–1756. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219883871

  • The authors document collective memories of the founding, curriculum, and attendees of one of the first (1866) Reconstruction Era Quaker-Freedmen School sites in the Southeastern U.S. They apply Whiteness as property to interpret their data. This study demonstrates how “Whiteness as property remains across generations and contexts.”

Brettschneider, M. (2015). African Jewishness in the European Christian imaginary. The Journal of Religion, 95(1), 107–120. https://doi.org/10.1086/678537

  • The author reviews previous works and “the state of the field from the perspective of critical race studies, and in particular Jewish critical race studies, an important theoretical approach in religious studies.” In religious studies, CRT looks at “who ‘wins’ and who ‘loses’ as ideas, practices, and institutions are built and morph; what the costs are; and to whom and in what ways.” In Jewish critical race theory, “matters of Jewish import are privileged in analyses.”

Conradie, M. S. (2016). Critical race theory and the question of safety in dialogues on race. Acta Theologica, 36(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.4314/actat.v36i1.2

  • This study “seeks to combine research from CRT, as applied to post-1994 South Africa, with insights from practical theology.” It looks into “points of agreement between these perspectives, especially the call to critically appraise ideologies that deny or obscure the present-day consequences of racism.”

Fears, B. A. (2021). Race, disability and COVID-19: A DisCrit analysis of theological education. Religions, 12(1), Article 35. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12010035

  • Employing the framework of Disability Studies and CRT (Dis/Crit), the author analyzes theological education to address what has been identified as racial paterfamilias in the institution, which may explain their colonial/capitalist response to COVID-19.

Gerteis, J., Hartmann, D., & Edgell, P. (2020). Racial, religious, and civic dimensions of anti-Muslim sentiment in America. Social Problems, 67(4), 719–740. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spz039

  • This paper examines anti-Muslim sentiment in America. Their findings show that “nearly half of Americans embrace some form of anti-Muslim sentiment, and that such views are systematically correlated with social location and with understandings of the nature of American belonging.” Building from recent work in CRT and the study of cultural boundaries in national belonging, the authors argue that “Muslims are distinct in being culturally excluded on religious, racial, and civic grounds at the same time.”

Hafez, F. (2018). Schools of thought in Islamophobia studies: Prejudice, racism, and decoloniality. Islamophobia Studies Journal, 4(2), 210–225. https://doi.org/10.13169/islastudj.4.2.0210

  • This article “discusses the different prominent approaches to the concepts of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism that can be found in academic literature.” Three schools of thought can be identified in Islamophobia studies. “The first conducts research on Islamophobia in the context of prejudice studies, the second is informed by racism studies and draws on the postcolonial tradition, and the third contributes to the second through the addition of a decolonial perspective.”

Heschel, S. (2015). The slippery yet tenacious nature of racism: New developments in critical race theory and their implications for the study of religion and ethics. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 35(1), 3–27. https://doi.org/10.1353/sce.2015.0018

  • Drawing from recent methodological innovations in the study of racism, this essay “explores the appeal of racism and the erotics of race within the imagination.” The “slippery nature of racism, and its ability to alter its manifestations with ease and hide behind various disavowals, facilitates the racialization of both religious thought and social institution.”

Jones, R. A. (2009). Philosophical methodologies of critical race theory. Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives, 1(1), 17–40.

  • In this paper, Jones discusses (1) how Black philosophers employ CRT to deconstruct their own racialized marginalization; (2) how postmodern philosophical methodologies are deployed by philosophers in CRT discourse by analyzing the genealogical method, which is one of the philosophical currents that CRT draws from; and (3) how CRT provides the structure for a transformative philosophical discourse for assuaging racialized, genderized, politicized, and nationalistic inequities.

Small, E. (2020). How successful African-American male leaders in predominately White Organizations integrate spirituality with leadership practice. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 17(2), 184–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2019.1697727

  • Using CRT, this article presents findings from a hermeneutic phenomenological study to explore the leadership experiences of five African-American men in senior-level positions in predominately White organizations (PWO) in the U.S. Findings show that African-American spirituality provided the self-determination and resiliency to combat racially insensitive micro-aggressions in a PWO.

Tranby, E., & Hartmann, D. (2008). Critical Whiteness theories and the Evangelical "race problem": Extending Emerson and Smith's "Divided by Faith." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47(3), 341–359. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2008.00414.x

  • In Divided by Faith (2000), Emerson and Smith use “the case of evangelical Christians to demonstrate how uncompromising individualist ideals get in the way of clear thinking and decisive action about racial inequalities in contemporary American society.” This article uses insights developed from Whiteness studies and CRT to sharpen and extend this analysis. The authors also present data from a recent national survey of race and religion in American life to support their revisionist claims.

Zockoll, B. M., Jr. (2019). We're missing someone: The lack of Black leaders in Maryland church schools. Journal of Research on Christian Education, 28(2), 151–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/10656219.2019.1631236

  • This qualitative study explores “perceptions of leadership within the Maryland Association of Christian Schools (MACS) concerning the lack of Black administrators.” Findings show that “MACS member schools prioritize the mission and draw leadership applicants from an almost entirely monochromatic applicant pool. Most MACS school leaders claimed an acceptance of colorblindness yet saw the need to develop cultural awareness.”
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