Deidre Crumbley
Professor: Africana Studies
Bio
Growing up in inner city Philadelphia, Deidre Helen Crumbley never imagined that one day she would become an anthropologist. In fact, as a member of a female-founded millenarian Sanctified church, she really did not expect to reach adulthood before the Parousia; but, when she did, she began to explore religion—and religions. This culminated in a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School in history of religion, and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in anthropology, after four years of fieldwork in Nigeria. There, she studied gender and institution-building in an indigenous church movement among the Yoruba people, which is the subject of Spirit, Structure and Flesh: Gendered Experiences in African Instituted Churches (AICs) [2008]. Her book, Saved and Sanctified: The Rise of a Storefront Church in Great Migration Philadelphia [2012], explores religion, gender, and power in the context of the African Diaspora in the United States. Her current research explores biography as a medium of anthropological writing, particularly for exploring the interplay of race, gender, and work in the African Diaspora. She has taught at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, West Africa; at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, where she headed African and African American Studies; and at the University of Florida, where she held a joint appointment between the departments of Anthropology and Religion. Dr. Crumbley’s pedagogical goals are to impart to students holistic, interdisciplinary, and critical thinking skills; a lifelong passion for intellectual inquiry; and, a sense of ease with complexity.
Responsibilities
Faculty Advisor: African Students Union
IDS: Self Design Committee
Projects
1. Current Research and Book Project: Bernice’s Tale: Gender, Race and Migration in an American Life
2. Sustainable community an urban wetland: Southeast Raleigh’s Walnut Creek Wetland as a case study
3. Toward a pedagogy of interdisciplinarity
Research Publications
Books
2012 Saved and Sanctified: The Rise of a Storefront Church in Great Migration Philadelphia. University Press of Florida.
2008 Spirit, Structure, and Flesh: Gendered Experiences in African Instituted Churches among the Yoruba of Nigeria. University of Wisconsin Press
Refereed Journal Articles
2007 “Miraculous Mothers, Empowered Sons, and Dutiful Daughters: Gender, Race, and Power in an African American Sanctified Church. Journal of Anthropology and Humanism. Volume 32 Number 1. pp. 2-51
2003 “Patriarchs, Prophets, and Procreation: Sources of Gender Practices in Three African Churches,” Africa, 73/ 4, pp. 584-605
2000 “Also Chosen: Jews in the Imagination and Life of a Black Storefront Church,” Anthropology and Humanism, 25/1, April, pp. 6-23
Book Articles
2010 “ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC: INDEPENDENT CHURCH MOVEMENTS (ICMS) IN AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA.” IN ESSAYS ON WORLD CHRISTIANITY IN HONOR OF LAMIN SANNEH, EDITED BY AKINTUNDE AKINADE. NEW YORK: PETER LANG PUBLISHING. PP. 177-208
2009 “Sanctified Saints-Impure Prophetesses: Gender, Purity and Power in Two Afro-Christian Spirit-Privileging Churches.” In The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologist in Global Contexts. Ed. Veli-Matti Karkkainen.Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. pp. 115-134. (A Templeton Foundation Funded Book Project)
2008 “From Holy Ground to Virtual Reality: Aladura Gender Practices in cyberspace – An African Diaspora Perspective.” In Christianity in Africa and the African Diaspora: The Appropriation of a Scattered Heritage. London. Continuum Religious Studies. pp. 126-139
2008 “Raising Saints in Exile: Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer in a Storefront–Sanctified Church Assessment.” In Social Work Practice with African American Families an Intergenerational Perspective [Series: Social Work Practice in Action] Ed. Cheryl Waites. New York: Routledge. pp 69-85
2007 “Gender and Change in an African Immigrant Church: An Anthropologist and a Prophetess Reflect.” Co-written with Prophetess Gloria Cline-Smythe, In African Immigrant Religion in America, edited by Jacob Olupona and Regina Gemignani. New York University Press. pp. 158-181
2006 “Power in the Blood: Menstrual Taboos and Female Power in an African Instituted Church.” In Women and Religion in the African Diaspora, edited by Marie Griffith and Barbara Savage. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 81-97
Journal Guest Editor
2007 “Negotiating the Sacred: Gender, Power, and Religion in Contemporary Asia”. Co-Editors Shan Shan Du (Tulane) and Hillary Crane (Tufts), and D. H. Crumbley, RELIGION Spring Issue 2007
Review Article
2012 Searching for Africa in Brazil: Power and Tradition in Candomble. [Author: Stefania Capone. Translated from the French by Lucy Lyal Grant. Duke University Press. Durham and London. 2010] In RELIGION: Fall 2012.
Funded Research
Center for Africana Studies (Univ. of Pennsylvania) 2010
Black Religious Studies Group
University of Pennsylvania Provost’s Office for Interdisciplinary Studies
Emory University: Candler School of Theology 2009
Consult: Ethnography and Theology
Lilly Endowment
African American and African Studies 2004-2005
African Immigrant Religions Project
Ford Foundation Funded at University of California Davis
Women and Religion in the African Diaspora 2002-2004
Collaborative Research Group
Princeton University: Ford Foundation
Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University 2001-2002
Florida University System Research Grant 1997-1998
Applied at the University of Virginia, C.G. Woodson Center
Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow 1991-1992
Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton University 1991-1992 [Alternate]
Fulbright Hays 1985-1986
Invited Presentations
2012 Bowdoin College: Black Women and Pentecostalism in Diaspora Symposium. “Saved, Sanctified and Covered: Gender, Race, and the Body in a Storefront Church”
2011 Northwestern University Program of African Studies. “Blood and Blessings: Gender and Power in an African Church”
2010 The Zora Neal Hurston Festival of the Arts and the Humanities. “Zora Neale Hurston as Anthropologist: Predecessors, Prohibitions, and Permission”
2010 University of Pennsylvania: The Center for Africana Studies & Provost’s Fund on Interdisciplinary Studies. “Transatlantic Independent Churches, Storefront Churches, and Family Narratives”
2009 Emory University: Candler School of Theology Consultation on Ethnography and Theology “Researcher-Researched: Ethnography, Theology, and the Methodological Implications of Studying One’s Own”
2004 Princeton University: Women and Religion in the African Diaspora. “Power in the Blood: Menstrual Taboos and Female Power in an African Instituted Church.”
2004 Marquette University: Society for Pentecostal Studies. “African Independent Churches and Menstrual Rites.” Society for Pentecostal Studies
2003 Hirschluch Conference Centre, Berlin, Germany. “From Holy Ground to Virtual Reality: An African American Reflection on Aladura Globalization and Gender Practices,” The Third International Interdisciplinary Conference of the African Christian Diaspora in Europe
2002 Princeton University Symposium. “Patriarchies, Prophets, and Procreation: Gender Practices in Three African Churches,” Princeton University, Center for the Study of Religion Symposium
Education
Ph.D. Anthropology Northwestern University 1989
Area(s) of Expertise
1. Gender, religion, power in Africa and the African Diaspora
2. Uses of ethnographic writing and live narratives to explore social history
3. Sustainable community development in the African Diaspora