Send us a text This is the third episode in a three-part series hosted by podcast host Dr. Mitzi Smith in which she engages in conversation with the members of the "Dreaming Up Pedagogies that Heal" project. They discuss the "classroom" as a space that embodies their dreams, where they risk embodied dreaming, that affirms students' dreams, and where dreams live and not die. The co-leaders of the project are Drs. Kenneth Ngwa and Arthur Pressley (both of Drew Theological School), a...

Send us a text In this episode 10, the 2nd of a three-part series, podcast host Dr. Mitzi Smith interviews the co-leaders, Drs. Kenneth Ngwa and Arthur Pressley (both of Drew Theological School) and the participants of the "Dreaming Up Pedagogies that Heal" project. The workshop participant-scholars are: Althea Spencer-Miller, Drew Theological School; Moses Biney, Bethel Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, NY; Israel Kamudzandu, St Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, M...

Send us a text In this episode, podcast host Dr. Mitzi Smith interviews the co-leaders, Drs. Kenneth Ngwa and Arthur Pressley (both of Drew Theological School) and the participants of the "Dreaming Up Pedagogies that Heal" project. The workshop participant-scholars are: Althea Spencer-Miller, Drew Theological School; Moses Biney, Bethel Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, NY; Israel Kamudzandu, St Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, Missouri; Ericka Dunbar, Baylo...

Send us a text In Episode 7 of Season 2, Dr. Mitzi Smith's guests are two editors, Dr. CL Nash and Dr. Carol Marie Webster of a special issues of The African Journal of Gender and Religion Vol. 30 No 1 (2024) entitled "Black Women’s Radical Religious Epistemologies in Mahogany & Steepled Towers." We are also joined by two contributors, Rev. Shandon Klein (Ph.D. Candidate) and Dr. Ameena Al-Rasheed. Rev. Klein discusses her essay, "Empowered Resistance: The Impact of an African Indigenous ...

Send us a text In Season 2, Episode 8, podcast host Dr. Mitzi J. Smith and her guests from Season 2, Episode 7, Dr. CL Nash, Dr. Carol Marie Webster, Dr. Almeena Al-Rasheed, and Rev. Shandon Klein stay by to reflect on some of the themes and womanist issues and concerns raised (and not raised) in the podcast. Support the show Thank you for listening! Check Out My Website at www.mitzijsmith.net Follow us on Twitter @BeyondTWC If you heard something that resonates with you, please share ...

Send us a text 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 Vir...

Send us a text 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 ("hat...

Send us a text 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. Addit...

Send us a text 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." Rev. Dr. Tijuana L. Gray recently received her Doctor of Ministry degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2024 and marked the ninth anniversary of her ordination to the ministry with the Uni...

Send us a text 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 Clarenc...

Send us a text 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 Bib...

Send us a text 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 impetu...

Send us a text 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 organiz...

Send us a text In this Episode 19, podcast host Rev. Dr. Mitzi J Smith talks with Rev. Dr. Raquel S. Lettsome, Distinguished Visiting Professor of New Testament and Womanist Hermeneutics at Eden Theological Seminary about her journey to womanism, her seminal text Call and Consequences, and her ministry (www.RSLministries.com). Support the show Thank you for listening! Check Out My Website at www.mitzijsmith.net Follow us on Twitter @BeyondTWC If you heard something that resonates ...

Send us a text In this episode 18 podcast host Dr. Mitzi J. Smith welcomes guest and colleague Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins, the Peachtree Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA. He is a documentarian, pastor, professor who teaches with digital media, and the scholar with a camera who is building bridges to justice. He is a staunch supporter of womanism and feminism, Black women in general, and/or LGBTQI+ peoples. In this episode we discuss his late...

Send us a text In Episode 17 podcast host Dr. Mitzi J. Smith has a conversation with womanist colleague the Rev. Dr. Angela N. Parker. Dr. Parker is assistant professor of New Testament and Greek at McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University, Decatur, GA. We discuss how Dr. Parker became a womanist biblical scholar and her wonderful book If God Still Breathes, Why Can't I: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority. Support the show Thank you for listening! Check Out My Website at www.mitzij...

Send us a text In this episode 16 podcast host Dr. Mitzi J. Smith conducts a fascinating interview with Dr. Mmapula D. Kebaneilwe, Hebrew Bible/OT Womanist Scholar, University of Botswana, Humboldt Research Scholar based in University of Bamberg, Germany, and Project Partner with Profs. J. Stiebert of Leeds University and Dr. Katie Edwards of Sheffield University (UK) on The Shiloh Project on Rape Culture, Religion, and the Bible (for which Dr. Smith is one of the consultants). Dr. Kebaneilwe...

Send us a text Hebrew Bible/OT womanist scholar, author, preacher, and public theologian Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems is the guest of this episode 15 of Season 1 of the Beyond the Womanist Classroom Podcast. The host, Rev. Dr. Mitzi J. Smith speaks with Dr. Weems about her essay "The Biblical Field's Loss Was Womanist Ethics' Gain: Katie Cannon and the Dilemma of the Womanist Intellectual." That essay can be read in its entirety in Walking Through the Valley: Womanist Explorations in the Sp...

Send us a text In this Episode 14, podcast host Rev. Dr. Mitzi J Smith (womanist scholar, author, professor) interviews Rev. Dr. Sharon Ellis Davis about her new book The Trauma of Sexual and Domestic Violence: Navigating My Way through Individuals, Religion, Policing and the Courts. Support the show Thank you for listening! Check Out My Website at www.mitzijsmith.net Follow us on Twitter @BeyondTWC If you heard something that resonates with you, please share the podcast! Jo...

Send us a text In this Episode of Beyond the Womanist Classroom, podcast host Dr. Mitzi Smith interviews Dr. C L Nash about her womanist activist work in the United Kingdom and her brainchild Misogynoir to Mishpat, a website devoted to the work of Black women (of African descent) religious scholars. Listeners can find Misogynoir to Mishpat on Facebook and Twitter. Support the show Thank you for listening! Check Out My Website at www.mitzijsmith.net Follow us on Twitter @BeyondTWC If you heard...