Merinda Simmons
- Title: Professor
- Department: Religious Studies
- College: Arts & Sciences
Bio
K. Merinda Simmons is a Professor of Religious Studies with research and teaching emphases in idenity theory, postcolonial literature and theory, and southern studies. Holding a Ph.D. in English (2009), she regularly incorporates other discourses—from conceptual art, media theory, and performance studies most recently—in her work. Her books include Race and New Modernisms (co-authored with James A. Crank, 2019), The Trouble with Post-Blackness (co-edited with Houston A. Baker, Jr., 2015), Changing the Subject: Writing Women across the African Diaspora (2014), and Race and Displacement (co-edited with Maha Marouan, 2013). She is editor of the Equinox Publishing book series Concepts in the Study of Religion: Critical Primers and is currently working on two of her own book projects. One examines the history and role of gender theory in the academic study of religion. The other, still in its early stages, triangulates archive theory, queer theory, and critical improvisation studies in order to offer new ways of thinking about subjectivity and temporality in scholarly discussions of “lived experience.”