Public Scholarship Catalyst Grants

In February 2024, Sacred Writes announced the recipients of our inaugural Public Scholarship Catalyst Grant, funded by the Henry R. Luce Foundation and designed to foster meaningful public collaborations between scholars and community organizations centering race, justice, and religion.

The Black Church Food Justice Movement is a collaboration between Dr. Nina Brown, Professor of Anthropology at the Community College of Baltimore County  and the Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN), led by Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III, which addresses the systemic  problem of racially unequal access to healthy food by sourcing produce from Black-owned farms and using Black churches as food distribution hubs. Dr. Brown will work with a team of scholars and students to conduct oral history interviews with Black elders in Baltimore who are keepers of Black agricultural heritage; create digital story maps documenting the history of several of the farms affiliated with the networks, the people who have lived and worked on them, and the history of dispossession. The oral histories and story maps will be then incorporated into a digital exhibition with an interactive component inviting community contributions, and launched in a daylong conference bringing together religious and secular food justice activists and scholars in Baltimore in November 2025. 

Archiving Care: Trans and Queer Spiritual Activism with Saint Sylvia Rivera is a collaboration between Sam Davis, community archivist and PhD Candidate, Florida State University, with the Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCCNY), to honor Sylvia Rivera-Murray, a Puerto Rican trans woman, Stonewall veteran and gay liberation activist whose legacy continues today in Sylvia’s Place and the Sylvia Rivera Memorial Food Pantry, which shelter, support, and feed homeless and cash-poor Black and Latinx trans and queer youth community in Hell’s Kitchen. The project will include: a two-day memorial vigil in the MCCNY sanctuary during Pride Month 2024; the preservation of the “Saint Sylvia Collection” of video, audio, and personal belongings; and recording of oral histories with organizers who worked with Saint Sylvia. These community activities are designed to bring public awareness and material support for these crucial services as they battle state and city budget cuts to homelessness services; increased policing of homeless people, and an upsurge in trans and queerphobia.

Sacred Dances, Sacred Resistance: Struggles Toward the Respect of Nahua Religious Practices in San Miguel Tzinacapan, Puebla, Mexico, a collaboration between Sitalin Sánchez, MTS  candidate at Harvard Divinity School and Maseual ceremonial dancer, and The Takachiualis Commission, a human organization protecting the town’s indigenous community. The visibility of their fifteen ceremonial dance groups as symbols of Mexican indigeneity has brought conflict with the local Catholic hierarchy, which views their worship as unorthodox; tourism, which photographs and records performances without consent; and the media, which seeks to profit from this objectification. The project will work to strengthen the community’s ability to protect themselves  by recording and preserving local histories of acts of resistance since 1980; leading  a three-day community meeting for town elders  to collaboratively develop a set of ethical guidelines; and incorporating these stories and guidelines into a two-week workshop for the children of the community.Their stories and artwork will be included in a public exhibit. 

MEDIA PARTNERSHIPS

Bitch Media’s mission is to provide and encourage an engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and culture. Bitch Media is in print with Bitch Magazine, online at bitchmedia.org, on the air with the Popaganda and Backtalk podcasts, and on campuses around the world via Bitch on Campus. Bitch seeks to be a fresh, revitalizing voice in contemporary feminism, one that welcomes complex arguments and refuses to ignore the contradictory and often uncomfortable realities of life in an unequivocally gendered world. Bitch Media has a broad reach, with a community that has grown to over 6 million readers around the globe.

(2020) partnered with Drs. Rebecca Epstein-Levi, Hannah Amaris Roh, and Barbara Sostaita

CBS Religion & Culture has been reporting on faith and religion since 1948. Led by producer Liz Kineke, the team produces four 30-minute broadcast segments each calendar year that air, on average, across 70% of the country on CBS stations. They are also available on all CBS platforms: CBS All Access, YouTube, Amazon Prime and cbsnews.com.

(2018) PARTNERED WITH DR. MARA BENJAMIN, ASAD DANDIA, AND KAMEELAH MU'MIN RASHAD

The Christian Century is an ecumenical biweekly magazine of faith, culture, politics, and the arts with the tagline “thinking critically, living faithfully.” Since its founding in 1884, The Christian Century has cultivated dialogues among church, academy, and society. The majority of our readers today are white mainline Protestants, many of them pastors, who are open to thinking in new ways about theology and the life of faith as culture changes.

Currently partnered with Amulya Mandava and Warren Lattimore

Commonweal is an independent journal of religion, politics, and culture edited by Catholic laypeople that inspires readers to seek a more just and inclusive future for our church and society. Approaching its one hundredth year of publication, Commonweal remains committed to its tradition of critical thinking, clear writing, and journalistic excellence. It is published in print eleven times a year, with a combined July/August issue, and is read by a highly educated audience of 20,000; the website, updated daily with new stories, averages a quarter-million page views per month. Through its publishing work in multiple media and its conversation-oriented events, Commonweal leads rigorous discussions about faith and conscience, all centered on the primacy of the common good. A robust social-media presence, popular email newsletter, and twice-monthly podcast complement Commonweal’s editorial content.

currently partnered with AMIRAH OROZC

Contingent magazine is an independent, non-profit online history magazine written by people who work outside the tenure-track professoriate. That includes adjuncts, independent scholars, and workers in museums and libraries. The magazine is built around the ideas that history is for everyone, every way of doing history is worthwhile, and scholars should be paid for their work.

currently partnered with Patrick Hayes, Chris HAlsted, Matias Maldonado, Rebecca Mendoza Nunziato, Cindy Scheopner, and Zara Surratt

DigBoston is Boston’s only alternative weekly publication. They have covered local news, arts, music, sex, food, movies and shopping in a lively, funny, incisive and, most importantly, dead honest style since 1999. Distribution includes a print biweekly with more than 40,000 readers, with drop-off spots from the North Shore to the South Shore and a focus on Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, as well as robust online and email newsletter presence. The readership spans young people to older progressives who have been consuming alternative weeklies since the days of the Boston Phoenix and the Real Paper.

(2021) Partnered with Dr. Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada

Since its beginning in 1964, readers have looked to the National Catholic Reporter as a credible independent voice in Catholic journalism. NCR is accountable to an accomplished lay board of directors rather than a bishop or head of a religious order. Initially, NCR’s audience was mostly national. NCR has now developed a global online audience, with readers in virtually every country on the planet.  

Because of its independent status, NCR goes where other Catholic news sources cannot. In its early days, NCR reported on the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, including the secret findings and the dissenting opinions of Pope John XXIII’s/Pope Paul VI’s commission on birth control. We were the first, and for many years the only, publication to report the clergy sex abuse crisis and episcopal cover-up. We were the first Catholic publication to report extensively on the environment. Throughout its history, NCR has been a voice for the marginalized, including women, LGBTQ+ communities, refugees, and immigrants. 

Currently Partnered with Dr. Nicole Symmonds

PRI’s The World is an hour-long international news program that reaches almost 3 million listeners on more than 300 public radio stations. It is co-produced by the BBC World Service, PRI-PRX, and WGBH in Boston. 

Currently partnered with Dr. nandini Deo

Religion Dispatches is an independent, award-winning online source for writing on critical and timely issues at the intersection of religion, politics, and culture. Publishing daily since 2008, Religion Dispatches draws over a quarter of a million readers per month and has an active social media presence with nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter. With deep roots in both the academy and journalism, Religion Dispatches appeals to experts and general readers alike.

Now accepting applications for two gender & Sexuality scholars through sept. 18th

Religion for Breakfast is a YouTube channel dedicated to the academic study of religion with over 65,000 subscribers and almost 4 million views since it launched in 2013. RFB’s goal is to boost religious literacy by producing high-quality educational videos on a variety of religious studies topics, ranging from ancient Christianity to religious studies theory to pop culture.

(2019-2020) PARTNERed with Dr. Tricia Bruce, Abel Gomez, and Dr. Anthony Pinn

Religion News Service reports on religion and its intersections with political and cultural issues. Their mission is “to inform, illuminate and inspire public discourse on matters relating to belief and convictions.” RNS distributes stories to the nation’s leading newspapers, news magazines, online media outlets, broadcasting firms and religious publications.

Recently Partnered with Dr. Darnise Martin

The Revealer is an online magazine that explores religion and its many roles in society and people’s lives. Published ten times a year, The Revealer aims to provide a wider lens, greater context, and more nuanced perspectives on topics of public interest. With more than 3,500 dedicated subscribers, The Revealer attracts roughly 9,000 readers each month, giving our writers the opportunity to reach an educated and engaged public audience.

Currently Partnered with Drs. Jessica Johnson and Bhakti Mamtora

Sapelo Square is an online information resource that covers Black Muslims in the context of their relationship with Black America, the United States and the global tradition of Islam. Its mission is to challenge their invisibility in media, scholarship, and public policy. Sapelo Square is committed to a nonsectarian approach to Islam and an inclusive vision of what it means to be Black in the United States.

(2020) partnered with Drs. Rasul Miller, Kristian Petersen, and Kayla Renée Wheeler

Sojourners is an independent, award-winning publication of faith, culture, and politics. Since 1971, they have published work on racial and social justice, peace, and environmental stewardship. Sojourners reaches more than 5 million annual readers, attracts more than 7 million annual page views, and has more than 309k social media followers. The majority of its readers are progressive Christians from a variety of denominational backgrounds and are interested in putting their faith into action for social justice.

recently Partnered with Easten Law, Yazmine Nichols, and Dr. Oluwatomisin oreiden

Straight White American Jesus is a religion and politics podcast that focuses on Christian nationalism and the Religious Right. Episodes appear three times per week in the form of host interviews, special thematic series, and weekly news roundups centered on religion and politics. Both hosts, Dan Miller (Landmark College) and Bradley Onishi (University of San Francisco) are former evangelical ministers who now use their training as scholars of religion to analyze and dissect past and present iterations of Christian nationalism in the United States. Straight White American Jesus has a monthly audience of 45k listeners and is downloaded 170,000+ times per month.

Currently partnered with cody musselman and zachary t. smith

Tricycle: The Buddhist Review is a print and digital magazine dedicated to making Buddhist teachings and practices broadly available. Tricycle also offers monthly online spiritual films, podcasts with leading Buddhist voices, weekly dharma talk videos, and a variety of online courses with expert teachers. By remaining unaffiliated with any particular teacher, sect, or lineage, Tricycle provides a unique and independent public forum for exploring Buddhism, establishing a dialogue between Buddhism and the broader culture, and introducing Buddhist thinking to western disciplines. Tricycle's readership includes longtime Buddhist practitioners, those who are curious about Buddhism or meditation, and those who do not identify as Buddhist but seek to enrich their lives through a deeper knowledge of Buddhist traditions.

currently Partnered with Renée Lynn Ford, Philip Friedrich, Dr. Beverley McGuire, and Dr. Amy Paris Langenberg