| Education
B.A. Western Maryland College
M.Div. Union Seminary, N.Y.
Ph.D. American University, Washington D.C.
Biography
Dr. Linda E. Thomas has engaged students, scholars and communities as a scholar for almost twenty years. She studies, researches, writes, speaks and teaches about the intersection and mutual influence of culture and religion. Her work is rooted intransitively in a Womanist perspective.
Dr. Thomas has taught in the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, ethics and theology. She is particularly focused on the experience of African-American women, and is passionate about uncovering and exploring historical and contemporary experiences and ideologies that govern actions, policies and norms surrounding sex, race and class. She always incorporates multiple teaching and learning methods in the classroom; in addition to traditional sources, she regularly uses literature, music and film to provide variety and relevance for her students.
Her professional academic experience began as Dean of Students at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C., where she also taught courses in spiritual formation. She has served on the faculty at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado and Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. At Garrett, she also served as the Director of the Center of the Church and the Black Experience. Currently, Dr. Thomas serves as full professor at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, Illinois. She has served as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, and Drew University.
Dr. Thomas is well-published. Her first book, Under the Canopy: Ritual Process and Spiritual Resilience in South Africa (1999), explores the everyday lives of black South Africans trapped by systems of structural poverty and the ways religion and culture fueled their resilience during the apartheid era. Her second book, Living Stones in the Household of God (2004), is a collection of essays about Black Theology in the new millennium. Dr. Thomas edited the book and contributed two essays. She has published dozens of articles in academic journals and contributed essays to several scholarly books.
With a Ph.D. in anthropology from The American University in Washington D.C. and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Dr. Thomas’s work has taken her to South Africa, Peru, Cuba and Russia. She has been recognized as an Association of Theological Schools Faculty Fellow as well as a Pew Charitable Trust Scholar.
Areas of Expertise
Topics that Dr. Thomas is available to address at adult
forums and other congregational events
Church and Society
Congregational Life
Cultural Issues
Prayer
Theology
Titled Presentations
Cultural Issues Impeding the Church in this Millennium
God Talk in Your Church
How’s Your Prayer Life
Signs of the Time: Issues the Church Must Address in this
Millennium
Profile
Linda Thomas, professor of theology and anthropology,
came to the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in 2000
from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston,
Ill.. She has pastored congregations in White Plains and
Brooklyn, N.Y., and was dean of students and a lecturer
in spiritual formation at Wesley Seminary in Washington,
D.C. After earning the doctor of philosophy degree, she
taught at Iliff School of Theology in Denver until going
to Garrett in 1997. Author of many articles, her book Under
the Canopy: Ritual Process and Spiritual Resilience in South
Africa, chronicles her field research in a South African
village—research she won a Lilly grant to replicate
on the south side of Chicago in 2000. She is married to
Dwight Hopkins, who teaches at the University of Chicago
Divinity School, and they live in Chicago with their daughter
Dora.
Published Works
Books
Under the Canopy: Ritual Process and Spiritual Resilience
in South Africa. Columbia, SC: University of South
Carolina Press, 1999.
Articles and Chapters in Books
"Macro-economy, Apartheid, and Rituals of Healing
in an African Indigenous Church.” In
Religions/Globalization: Theories and Cases, ed.
Dwight N. Hopkins, et al. Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2001.
"Emancipatory Christianity.” In Black Faith
and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s
Black Theology and Black Power, ed. Dwight N. Hopkins.
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1999.
"Voices from the Margin in the United States,”
co-authored with Dwight N. Hopkins. In The Twentieth
Century: A Theological Overview, ed. Gregory Baum.
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1999.
"Womanist Theology, Epistemology, and a New Anthropological
paradigm.” Cross Currents: The Journal of the
Association for Religion and Intellectual Life, 48/4
(Winter 98/99).
"Black Theology Revisited,” co-authored with
Dwight Hopkins. Journal of Theology for Southern Africa
(1998).
“Beyond Feminism: An Intercultural Challenge for
Transforming the Academy,” co-authored with Paula
D. Nesbitt. In Common Ground: Feminist Collaboration
in the Academy, ed. Elizabeth G. Peck and JoAnna Stephens
Mink. New York: SUNY Press, 1998.
"The Gospel Train’s A-Coming: Beatitude, Suffering
and Ethnicity: A Response to Josiah Young III.” In
The Gospel Train’s A-Coming, ed. S.T. Kimbrough,
Jr. Mission Evangelism Series, No. 2. New York: General
Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church,
1998.
This web page was last updated on Aug. 21, 2007 |
