Marla F. Frederick
· leading ethnographer and scholar focused on the African American religious experienceVerifiedHarvard University · Faculty of Divinity
Active 2000–2023
About
Marla F. Frederick is a leading ethnographer and scholar focused on the African American religious experience. She employs an interdisciplinary approach to examining the ways religion, race, and politics impact our everyday lives. Her influential scholarship is principally focused on the study of religion and media, religion and social activism in the U.S. South, and the sustainability of Black institutions in a “post-racial” world. Frederick became the eighteenth Dean of Harvard Divinity School on January 1, 2024, and holds the titles of John Lord O’Brian Professor of Divinity and Professor of Religion and Culture. Frederick has a distinguished academic background, with a BA from Spelman College and a PhD from Duke University. She served on the Harvard faculty from 2003 to 2019, including as an assistant professor in the Department of African and African American Studies, with a joint appointment on the Committee on the Study of Religion. She was named the Morris Kahn Associate Professor in 2008 and became a tenured professor in 2010. From 2019 to 2023, she was the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Religion and Culture at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Her leadership roles include interim chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion, member of the provost’s academic leadership forum, and director of graduate studies and chair of the admissions committee for the Department of African and African American Studies. Frederick is the author or co-author of four books, including 'Colored Television: American Religion Gone Global' and 'Between Sundays: Black Women and Everyday Struggles of Faith.' She is currently curating an encyclopedia of the histories of historically Black colleges and universities as a general editor. Her teaching encompasses courses on the anthropology of religion; religion, gender, and race; the African American experience; and American evangelicalism. She has received numerous honors, including the Harvard College Professor Distinguished Teaching Award in 2016, served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2021, and has been president of the Association of Black Anthropologists.
Research topics
- Sociology
- Gender studies
- Political science
- Art
- History
Selected publications
<i>From Savage to Negro</i>: A Religion Scholar's Reflections
Transforming Anthropology · 2023-10-01
article1st authorCorrespondingOlaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa and Oluale Kossola or Cudjo Lewis
2023-01-01
other1st authorCorresponding2021 AAR Presidential Address: “Religion, Inequality, and the Will ‘to Stop’”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion · 2022-09-01
article1st authorCorrespondingAbstract Rising social inequality defines much of our world today, evidenced not only by the disproportionate effects of poverty and climate change but also by the uneven impact of the global pandemic on resourced and under-resourced communities. As scholars, we understand that religion often plays the role of both hero and villain in our efforts to live justly in the world. Navigating the lived effects of global supremacies can motivate collective action or forms of existential denial that reproduce the status quo. This address asks not what religion can help us do but rather what religion might help us cease to do, “to Stop” and re-evaluate.
New York University Press eBooks · 2022-02-15
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingNew York University Press eBooks · 2022-12-31
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingNew York University Press eBooks · 2020-12-31
book-chapterSenior authorStanford University Press eBooks · 2020-12-31
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingNew York University Press eBooks · 2020-12-31
paratextSenior authorNew York University Press eBooks · 2020-12-31
book-chapterSenior authorNew York University Press eBooks · 2020-12-31
book-chapterSenior author
Frequent coauthors
- 11 shared
Gordon G. Gallup
- 8 shared
Amy S. Colwell
Harvard University
- 4 shared
R. Nathan Pipitone
Florida Gulf Coast University
- 4 shared
Barbara L. Smith
Massachusetts General Hospital
- 4 shared
Robert C. Neuman
Massachusetts General Hospital
- 4 shared
Alex M. Lin
- 4 shared
William G. Austen
Harvard University
- 3 shared
Humama Khan
Emory University
Awards & honors
- Harvard College Professor Distinguished Teaching Award (2016…
- Joy Foundation Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advance…
- President of the American Academy of Religion (2021)
- President of the Association of Black Anthropologists
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