OUR TEAM
Dr. Phillis Isabella Sheppard
Phillis Isabella Sheppard is a North Easterner of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the and rural Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. Born of two parents from the red clay of Atlanta and Palmetto Georgia, she straddles two regional Black cultural sensibilities. Raised Roman Catholic, with an appreciation for the multiple spaces in which the Holy, sacred, and spiritual is known, she is a commissioned Community Chaplain in an Inclusive Catholic Community and a candidate for the diaconate.
Dr. Sheppard is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion. She is also the Inaugural Director of the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements, Vanderbilt University.
She is a womanist practical theologian, ethnographer, and psychoanalyst. She is the author of two books. Her first, “Self, Culture and Others in Womanist Practical Theology” places Black women’s experience, psychoanalytic self psychology, and cultural analysis in dialogue to articulate a Womanist Practical theology. Her second book, “Tilling Sacred Ground: Interiority, Black Women, and Religious Experience” examines religious experience and its intertwinement with interiority in social spaces beyond institutions and brick and mortar sites. As such, she examines Black women’s negotiation of race, gender, and sexuality in religious spaces. Her third book, in process, “My Existence is Resistance: Womanist Ethnography and Black Women’s Vocation” centers Black women’s vocational narratives in the development of womanist ethnographic approach.
Dr. Sheppard began centering Black women's voices and lived experiences in 1987 for her ethnographic study of secrecy in the lives of Black lesbians who were negotiating faith, Black church experience, and sexual identity. She has since researched Black women’s spirituality, vocational narratives, the intersection of religious and cultural experience, and womanist ethnography during the time of pandemic. Her current project is When African—Means Religious too: an ethnography of place, ritual and multi-religious belonging.
Sheppard conceptualized and convenes the Annual Womanist Ethnography Conference at Vanderbilt Divinity School. The conference highlights the methodology, aims, partnerships and characteristics that distinguish womanist ethnography as a field womanist studies.
She was awarded a Louisville Faculty Research Grant (2018) and the Randall Mason Research Award (1998, 1999, 2020), in support of her research.
Sheppard is Chair of the Religion, Psychology, and Culture area, Vanderbilt University Divinity School; Previously served as a Co-Director of the Center for Practical Theology, and Chair of Spiritual Life Committee at Boston University School of Theology.
Dr. Kishundra King is on the faculty of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School as the Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Director of the Black Religious Thought & Life Program. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion, Psychology, and Culture from Vanderbilt University, where she was a Theology and Practice Program fellow. She was awarded a doctoral fellowship from the Forum for Theological Exploration. She earned an M.Div. from Yale University Divinity School and an M.S. in Counseling from Creighton University.
Dr. King’s research focuses on Womanist pastoral theology grounded in Black girlhood experiences where she draws on her clinical counseling experiences and employs a Womanist approach to ethnography. In her classroom, Dr. King aims to create a formative learning environment where students develop their own pastoral identity and practice. She has served as a co-convener and conference planner in various academic settings.
Arelis is a Ph.D. candidate in Religion, Psychology, and Culture at Vanderbilt University, where she is a Theology and Practice program fellow and specializes in Latino/a Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies. She earned an MA from Loma Linda University School of Religion and is a clinically trained Healthcare Chaplain.
Arelis is a Queer Latina Adventist Theologian whose research centers non-dualistic thought and proposes alternative philosophies that redefine approaches to social, psychological, and spiritual-religious transformation in pastoral theology. As a pastoral theologian, she anchors her methodological approaches in the works of Gloria Anzaldúa towards the inclusion of Latinx communities and development of Latinx pastoral care responses. Grounded in her own identities and autohistoria-teoría, her dissertation explores parallels of suffering and healing in sexual identity (re)construction and migration narratives within the Latinx LGBTQ+ community. As a Chaplain and Field Educator, Arelis is dedicated to the work of spiritual transformation and social change. Her aim is to curate spaces that nurture the process of pastoral formation and tend to the lived experiences of students and those who feel called to (non)traditional paths in the practice of ministry.
Graduate Students (2018-2022)
Amina S. McIntyre is a 3rd year Ph.D student in Religion, area Religion, Psychology and Culture, with minors in Womanist Ethnography and Homiletics and Liturgics at Vanderbilt University. McIntyre earned a BA in Anthropology at Colby College, MA in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University, MFA in Playwriting at Spalding University, and Master of Theological Studies at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She is an Atlanta regional playwright with production credits at Actor’s Express, Atlanta History Museum, Out of Hand Theatre, Oakland Cemetery, and Vanguard Repertory Theatre. She is an Elder in Full Connection with the CME Church and a Co-Founder of Hush Harbor Lab.
Digital Content
Christiana Green (she/her) is the Communications Coordinator in the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements. She is from Marietta, Georgia and has been in Nashville since beginning her education at Belmont University. She graduated in April of 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Christian Leadership with a minor in Communication Studies. She is starting a MTS program at Vanderbilt Divinity School in the fall of 2022.
Christiana has coordinated and participated in nonviolent protests in the past two years. Additionally, has spoken at protests.
She has also served in a pastoral role in a local congregation.
A quote she loves is from one of her favorite shows, ‘A Different World’ is,
“I am a voice in this world, and I deserve to be heard.”
We are a voice in this world, and we deserve to be heard. Entering her role at the James Lawson Institute, she hopes that this quote serves as a guiding force in her work surrounding nonviolent movement and social justice.
Without the guiding principle of love, our work is impersonal and disconnected from the people we are working alongside. To enact powerful social change, we must meet people with love and where they are, as the gospel of Jesus details for us.