Carpenter Cohort
In the spring of 2023, Sacred Writes accepted a training cohort of scholars focused on issues of gender and sexuality, sponsored by a grant from the Carpenter Foundation. Here they are!
Orit Avishai
fordham university
Orit Avishai is an ethnographer at Fordham University, where she teaches in the Sociology Department and in the Program on Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her work considers how ideology and culture, broadly defined, shape social institutions, identities, political dialogue, and cultural practices. Her recent work has focused on Jewish Orthodoxy, and her book, Queer Judaism, LGBT Activism and the Remaking of Jewish Orthodoxy in Israel is forthcoming from NYU Press. Her other work has been published in a variety of venues, including Gender & Society, The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and AJS Review. Her recent public-facing writing has appeared in The Conversation, The Katz Center Blog, and Religion Dispatches. Dr. Avishai has degrees from The University of California at Berkeley, the Yale Law School, and Tel Aviv University Law School.
Popy Begum
Rutgers University
Popy Begum is a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University-Newark, and an incoming Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Saint Louis University. She received her B.A. in International Criminal Justice and a Certificate in Dispute Resolution from John Jay College of Criminal Justice; and her MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the Centre for Criminology, Oxford University. Her dissertation study of Hindu and Muslim sex workers in New Delhi combines ethnographic field observations of the red-light district and 102 in-depth interviews via respondent-driven sampling. Popy has won dozens of awards for excellence in research, teaching, mentoring and service. Her research has been supported and recognized by organizations including the Association for the Sociology of Religion, the Religious Research Association, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Popy’s work has appeared in Trends in Organized Crime, Social Policy and Society, Journal of the Motherhood Initiative, and in edited volumes published by Oxford and Cambridge University Presses.
Justin Friel
university of denver
Justin Friel (He/Him) is currently a Ph.D. student in the Joint Doctoral Program with the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology. His research explores how religion, culture, and politics influence and affect one another and the ways these forces shape the formation and performance of Queer identities. Within that, Justin's research interests include white Christian nationalism, TikTok, popular culture, and utopia. Justin has an M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy and currently works time as a therapist focusing on sex, sexuality, spirituality, and identity.
Dustin Gavin
yale university
Dustin Gavin (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Departments of Religious Studies and African American Studies at Yale University. He received his B.A. in Journalism from Howard University, an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School, and completed his second M.A. in Religion and Visual Arts at Yale Divinity School and the Institute of Sacred Music. Dustin's research examines the overlap and confluence of sacred and profane idioms to examine the histories, aesthetics, and embodied performances of black women, sissies, and femmes across U.S. Southern regions.
Arwa Hussain
Concordia University
Arwa Hussain is a Ph.D. candidate in Religions and Cultures and 2022-23 Public Scholar at Concordia University in Montreal. Her current research interests deal with Islamic communities, particularly her own community, the Dawoodi Bohras, gender and agency, and social media platforms. Her dissertation combines digital ethnography and personal experience to understand how pious Dawoodi Bohra women embed their agency within a religious community and represent themselves on social media, the first study of its kind to shed light on this dynamic community and its women. Her doctoral research is supported by Concordia University and the FRQSC, awarded by the government of Quebec. Arwa holds an M.A. and M.Phil. degree in History from the University of Karachi, Pakistan, where she received the Hamida Khuhro Gold Medal of Excellence. As a Concordia Public Scholar, Arwa has produced a number of pieces of public scholarship, including for the Montreal Gazette, The Conversation, and the Concordia blogs; as well as a spotlight roundtable discussion on the potentials and pitfalls of social media for Muslim women at 4th Space, Concordia University.
Josie Kenyon
Indiana University
Josie Kenyon (they/them) is an Indiana-based writer and doctoral student. They take an interest in religion as a mode of theorizing, experiencing, and transforming material bodies (including our own). In more specific terms, their dissertation tracks these relations between religion and materiality as they appear in 20th-century feminist theory, trans-exclusionary feminisms, and contemporary transgender life and cultural production. In their spare time, they think about craft, castration, and ghosts.
M. Cooper Minister
shenandoah university
M. Cooper Minister is Associate Professor of Religion at Shenandoah University, where they teach courses on death, medicine, sex, gender, and theories of religion. Their books include Rape Culture on Campus and Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Methods (co-edited with Sarah Bloesch). Their current project is a memoir about being diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at 33 and learning to persist in between life and death on the dance floor.
Sara Moslener
central michigan university
Sara Moslener is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Religion at Central Michigan University, where she teaches courses on the history of religious and racial discrimination in the United States. She has been studying evangelical purity culture for over 15 years and has numerous publications, including the book Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence (Oxford University Press: 2015). Sara’s work has been featured in The Revealer, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Sojourners Magazine, Jezebel, Religion Dispatches, Religion & Politics, Religion News Service, and The Baffler. She has appeared on numerous podcasts and is a regular contributor to the podcast Straight White American Jesus.
Jeannie sellick
university of virginia
Jeannie Sellick is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia’s Religious Studies Ph.D. program. She defended her dissertation, “The Strongest Seed: Jerome’s Fashioning of an Ascetic Masculinity in Late Antiquity” in June 2022, and she is perpetually excited to share it with anyone who asks. She specializes in constructions of gender and sexuality in the religious traditions of the ancient and late antique Mediterranean, with a particular focus on queer masculinities. When she’s not teaching or writing, you can find Jeannie hanging out with her geriatric dog, Missy, critiquing Marvel movies, and perfecting her buffalo wing recipe.
Indhira Udofia
North Carolina A&T University/ UNC Greensboro
Indhira Udofia (she/they) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Joint Program in Social Work at NC A&T University and UNC Greensboro. Their dissertation project looks at the impact of religious trauma on Black Millennials and Generation Z, exploring the impact of institutional violence on gendered and sexual minorities within Black religious spaces. Her extensive experience providing therapeutic and spiritual services in clinical and community settings (since 2009) and faith communities (since 2014), shaped her deep passion for helping communities and individuals recover from trauma, especially in spaces of spiritual abuse and grief. Indhira believes that their work is a collaborative effort to empower others in their own healing journey. Using strengths-based methodologies and client-based appropriate rituals, restorative practices, and trauma-informed consultation, they work to address power dynamics, conflict resolution, self-care, and other issues that may arise within a healing framework, for the flourishing of the collective. Indhira’s love of the arts, especially music, and her travels all over the world, allow her a perspective that is inclusive, welcoming, and informed.
Heather White
UNIVERSITY OF Puget Sound
Heather R. White is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Department and Gender and Queer Studies Program at the University of Puget Sound and a Research Associate at the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. Her research focuses on religion, identity, and politics with an emphasis on queer, post-secular, and critical race theories as frameworks for interpreting recent U.S. history. White is the author of Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
Shatavia wynn
Rhodes College
Dr. Shatavia L. Wynn is Assistant Professor of Africana and Religious Studies at Rhodes College. She is a native of South Carolina. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy at Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC. She continued graduate studies at Yale University Divinity School where she studied religion, ethics, and African American studies. Dr. Wynn recently defended her dissertation at Vanderbilt University. Her dissertation addresses the contemporary work of engaging religion, race, gender, and sexuality. Dr. Wynn is an avid TV and movie watcher. She enjoys early 2000s reality TV and popular culture. She enjoys spending time with her dog, Zora.