Julia Marie Robinson (Ph.D., Michigan State University) joined the UNC Charlotte faculty after teaching at Western Michigan University for three years and five years at Alma College. She teaches courses on religious and racial violence, African American Religions and the Religions of the African Diaspora.  Her first book titled, Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: the Making of Urban Detroit, 1910-1946 is forthcoming under Wayne State University Press.

Undergraduate Courses

• RELS 3137 Religion in the African American Experience
• RELS 3150 African American Church and Civil Rights
• RELS 3230 Race, Religion, and Murder
• RELS 3232 Islam in the African American Experience

Graduate Courses

• Seminar in Theory and Method: Sacred Scapegoats: Violence, Victimage, and Mimetic Theory
• Seminar in American Religion: Martin Luther King Jr.: His Philosophy and Religion

Research Interests

I am interested in investigating the intersections of race, religion and violence within American and African American culture.  Trained as a historian, I address the ways in which historical contexts have often inform events of racialized violence. My reseach also explores how cultures construct ideas of the sacred, the profane, and racial identity.

Teaching

My teaching areas are as follows: African American Religions,  American and African American History, Protest and Civil Rights, Myth and Ritual, Religions of the African Diaspora (Santeria, Voodoo, etc.), Black women and Religion, and Studies in Mimetic Theory.