Contribute Your Story - #CRCgoodLife

We are working at a critical juncture. As one journalist wrote regarding an anticipated post-pandemic renaissance: “The pandemic has forced people to stop and think about what they really want to do… The most important thing one might do during a drawn-out crisis is to prepare for the aftermath” (Giovanni René Rodriguez, 2020). As we prepare for the pandemic’s “aftermath,” what priorities should we center? How may we form healthier relationships with the environment and among ourselves? And what does the good life look like now in the summer of 2021? 

With generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation, this project builds on our 2020 Relief and Restoration Work to examine and document how marginalized communities in American cities navigate the pandemic to negotiate structural barriers and to imagine better futures. Our work will be to document, support, and help bring to life visions of a healthy city in collaboration with religious, spiritual, and moral leaders, communities, and organizations. The CRC will provide academic, moral, logistic, financial, and other support for researchers to engage in this work with community partners. 

Goals: To continue and build on the CRCs documentation and reflection efforts of the impact of and response to the pandemic in collaboration with researchers, students, and community partners in 10-15 cities who have demonstrated a commitment to the work of racial justice and to help support similar efforts in other cities.

Activities and Outcomes

• Quarterly meeting with PIs

• Community Engagements: events, training workshops, project materials, and services provided for community partners (e.g. paid intern, grant writing, etc.) 

• Oral history & ephemera collections (e.g. photography and videography) from each member of the consortium/city/location

• Toolkit for community engaged work

• Short 20-30 min documentary film on the work of all of the consortium members

• Reflection pieces by research fellows

• Website for all of the content

• Public engagements with content collection (curriculum, public dialogues and workshops, blog discussions, tours, etc.)

To learn more about the project and/or discuss potential ways to collaborate, please contact us here and write “Good Life” in the subject line.

Meet the City PIs

Rupa Pillai (she/her) | Philadelphia, PA

“More than an Altar: Faith, Culture, and Resilience of Asian/American Business Owners in Philadelphia during COVID-19”

From nail salons to grocery stores and restaurants, a large proportion of the Asian American community are small business owners. Frequently these owners install and care for altars or other religious objects in their businesses. These religious objects, which honor the owners’ ancestors and/or their faith, do more than promote good luck and prosperity. They are also visual representations of Asian American culture, marking how the community is claiming space and asserting their belonging to the United States. This project explores how the meaning of such objects may have shifted during the pandemic while learning the pandemic’s impact on Asian American business owners and certain neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

Kim Vaz-Deville (she/her) | New Orleans, LA

“African American Mardi Gras Maskers’ Post-Pandemic Ideas about the Good Life”

The goal of the project is to capture New Orleans’s African American maskers experiences dealing with the covid virus and the quareteen; specifically its impact on their regalia and associated masking activities and experiences.

Harold Morales (He/him) | Baltimore, MD

“Land, Food, and Community in Baltimore”

Our project in Baltimore is focused on the spirit of equitable food systems. We are particularly interested in new visions for equitable foodways that are emerging in response to residential racial segregation, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and extreme weather events. For this project, we enlisted three partners: the Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm (PPHUF), the Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN), and the Govans Farmers Market. We plan to help to sponsor three life-giving events and include a table at each of these with urban planning manipulables/toys to help participants envision their goodlife neighborhood/community. The table will also include information about the CSRC, the GLP, and how to contribute stories to the project. 

Tatiana Lomahaftewa-Singer (she) | Santa Fe, NM

“IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts) Resilience”

Through the concept of art as a traditional path of creativity, IAIA excels at skill building, provoking thought and providing exceptional educational opportunities. IAIA is a place to embrace the past, enrich the present, and create the future, moving ahead to paths yet unexplored and undiscovered. Here on our stunning 140 acre Santa Fe campus, the beauty of learning is enhanced by the beauty of our surroundings. For generations, the unique landscape, dramatic light, and rugged physical beauty have made Santa Fe a mecca for artists seeking to express the deepest reaches of their creativity. We are a fine arts school in a fine arts town, which adds immensely, and positively, to the atmosphere and learning possibilities.

The Institute of American Indian Arts sits on the homelands of the Pueblo nations.

Kayla Renée Wheeler (She/her) | Cincinnati, OH

“Walking with Jesus in the Age of COVID-19: A Contemporary History of ‘Praying the Steps’ in Cincinnati, Ohio”

Kayla Renée Wheeler is an Assistant Professor of Critical Ethnic and Black Studies, a Faculty Associate in the Department of Theology, and the Africana Studies Program Director at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is the research director at the Center for the Study of Religion and the City at Morgan Study University. Wheeler earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies with a concentration in Islam in America from the University of Iowa in 2017. She is an expert in contemporary Islam and Black material culture. Currently, she is writing a book entitled, Fashioning Black Islam, which provides a history of Black Muslim fashion in the United States from the 1930s to the present. She is the author of the digital humanities project, Mapping Malcolm's Boston, which explores Malcolm X's life in Boston from the 1940s to 1950s. Dr. Wheeler is also the curator of the award-winning Black Islam Syllabus.

Kate DeConinck (she/her) | San Diego, CA

“The Good Life with (and of) Pets”

This project examines the role that pets play in post-pandemic imaginings of the “good life.” What sorts of experiences have pets helped their owners grapple with over the past eighteen months? As humans move forward from COVID-19, how are they imagining or reimagining their relationships with their furry, feathered, or scaled companions? Where do pets fall within owners’ present-day webs of intersubjective relationships? And, what might a good life look like for pets themselves in the wake of the pandemic?

Adriana P. Nieto (she/her) | Denver, CO

“The Good Life Denver”

The project chronicles a moment in time when institutions of higher education declared an end to institutional racism with the expansion of the “Displaced Aurarian Scholarship Fund”. The project will conduct oral history interviews with at least two families who were among approximately 900 families displaced by eminent domain on the part of the State of Colorado and the City and County of Denver in 1965. Particular attention to questions of educational opportunities, economic impact of displacement as the narratives will also reflect the current context of COVID, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods and what healing and reconciliation is possible.

Daisy Ocampo (she/her) | San Bernardino, CA

“Transmitting Knowledge From Elders to Youth Through Indigenous Basket Weaving”

Southern California tribal communities viewed the pandemic as a symptom of the disconnection between people, land and other-than-human beings. Disconnections are often exacerbated by layers of existing historical trauma rooted in loss to Native languages, cultural practices, elders and connections to the land. This projects seeks to empower urban Native families to revitalize California Indian baskets. Noted basketweaver Lorene Sisquoc (Cahuilla/ Apache), also curator of the Sherman Indian Museum (current boarding school in Riverside, CA), will instruct them on picking seasons, protocol for asking permission to pick on a reservation, gathering of material and the creation of a basket. During this event, participants will learn about the landscape of the Cahuilla Indian Reservation in Anza, CA. and learn of stewardship responsibilities, connections with Creation accounts, and invokes the larger relationality with people, animal, plant and Spirit communities. Empowering Native women to re-engage this basket weaving practice also supports a different ontological view of the land that is not rooted in colonial, capitalist and settler modalities. Land care practices and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) are also the means that this group can support the healing of the land and community visions for a healthier future. 

Meet the Partners

Teresa Smallwood JD, PhD (she/her)

Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Smallwood, Esq. was born in Windsor, North Carolina.

She is the daughter of the late Harry and the late Mattie Cherry Smallwood.  Dr. Smallwood graduated from Bertie Senior High School with honors in 1978.  She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for undergraduate studies where she majored in Speech Communications and Afro-American Studies and graduated with a B.A. Degree.  She received the Juris Doctor Degree in 1985 from North Carolina Central University School of Law. 

Dr. Smallwood began her legal career with Legal Services of the Southern Piedmont in Charlotte, NC. She also work as a staff attorney for the Children’s Law Center in the same city.  In 1989, she served as an Assistant District Attorney until she commenced her private practice that spanned more than two decades.

Dr. Smallwood currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee having graduated with the PhD degree May, 2017 from Chicago Theological Seminary in the areas of Theology, Ethics, and Human Sciences. She now serves as Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate Director of the Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Dr. Smallwood was licensed and ordained to public ministry while serving Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Lewiston, NC. She is a member at New Covenant Christian Church in Nashville under the pastoral leadership of Rev. Dr. Judy Cummings. 

Hazel Gómez (she/her)

Hazel Gómez serves as a curriculum developer, trainer, and mentor with the Muslim Power Building Project, a comprehensive community organizing and leadership development program for Muslims nationwide in which an Islamic framework is core to the curriculum. Additionally, the labor of love for her and her husband is Dream of Detroit, a nonprofit that combines community organizing with strategic housing and land development to build a healthy community and empower a marginalized neighborhood.

Gómez is a Puerto Rican and Mexican convert of nearly 20 years hailing from Chicago's west side. She graduated from Loyola University Chicago with double Bachelor's degrees in Forensic Science and Biology. Currently, she is studying the Islamic sciences with Rabata.org's Ribaat Academic Program and Seminary under the tutelage of Shaykha Tamara Gray and other Muslim women scholars. She is pursuing the Ribaat Teacher Certification. Gómez dedicates her time as a volunteer, advisor, and board member to various nonprofits ranging from community development and convert care to anti-racism work and bail reform. She is an avid reader of all things about Muslims in America and is interested in the research and creation of an authentic Latinx Muslim experience. In 2021, Gómez was named by the Center for American Progress as one of twenty-one faith leaders to watch.

Nathan Jérémie-Brink, PhD (he/him)

Nathan Jérémie-Brink, PhD is the L. Russell Feakes Assistant Professor of the History of Global Christianity at New Brunswick Theological Seminary. He is a historian of religion in the Atlantic World and the early US republic and a co-convenor of the Slavery + Freedom Studies Working Group at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, supported by the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice. Dr. Jérémie-Brink’s research and teaching interests include the history of Christianity and slavery, revolution and resistance in Haiti and the Black Atlantic, and African American activism and print culture. He earned his PhD in History from Loyola University Chicago in 2018. His current book project examines how early-nineteenth-century African American activists, clergy, and leaders of civic organizations used print to challenge slavery and advance Black empowerment. His work has been supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Louisville Institute, and a number of other leading foundations and research institutions. Dr. Jérémie-Brink is passionate about public engagement and digital humanities, and co-directs the The SHELTER Project, and the Gospel Materialities Working Group and Digital Humanities Project in collaboration with the Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis. He is also an ordained Presbyterian minister and facilitates considerations of slavery and reparations in faith communities..

Francisco Lozada, Jr., PhD (He/him)

Francisco Lozada, Jr. is the Charles Fischer Catholic Professor of New Testament and Latinx Studies. He holds a doctorate in New Testament and Early Christianity from Vanderbilt University. He is a past co-chair of the Johannine Literature Section (SBL), past chair of the Program Committee of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), and a past member of SBL Council. He is a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, a past steering committee member of the Bible, Indigenous Group of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), and past co-chair of the Latino/a and Latin American Biblical Interpretation Consultation (SBL). He also serves on the board of directors for the Hispanic Summer Program, and mentored several doctoral students with the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI). Dr. Lozada’s most recent publications concern cultural and ideological interpretation while exploring how the Bible is employed and deployed in ethnic/racial communities. As a teacher, he co-led immersion travel seminars to Guatemala to explore colonial/postcolonial issues and, most recently, to El Paso, TX, and Nogales, AZ, to study life and society in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

In 2014-15 Dr. Lozada was part of a leadership team for the Wabash Center for Teaching & Learning in Theology and Religion Workshop for Pre-Tenture Theological School Faculty. In April 2019, Dr. Lozada received The Catherine Saylor Hill Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, Brite Divinity School (April 2019). Dr. Lozada is Catholic and married to Wendi Lozada-Smith (Disciples of Christ).

Alisa Perkins, PhD (she/her)

Dr. Alisa Perkins is an ASSOCIATE professor in the Department of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University.

Perkins' current research project is an ethnographic study of Muslim American civic engagement in the Detroit-metro area. Her dissertation research was carried out in Hamtramck, Michigan, with the support of grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the National Science Foundation and the Philanthropic Educational Organization.

Before beginning her work on Islam in America, Perkins' research interests centered on women and gender in Muslim-majority societies, culminating in her master's level work on women’s education and family law in Morocco (this project was supported by a Fulbright grant).

Perkins recently received a 2019 College of Arts and Sciences Diversity and Inclusion Award and a Women's Caucus Gender Scholar Award.

Patrick Polk (he/him)

Patrick A. Polk's primary research interests focus on folk religion, material behavior, popular culture, and urban visual traditions.

His publications include "Haitian Vodou Flags(1997), "The Cast-Off Recast: Recycling and the Creative Transformation of Mass-Produced Objects" (co-edited, 1999), "Arte y Estilo: The Lowriding Tradition" (co-edited, 2000), "Botanica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels" (2004), and the forthcoming "Conjurers, Healers, and Hoodoo Doctors: Readings on African-American Magic and Folk Medicine.

Among the exhibits he has curated are "Sequined Spirits: Contemporary Vodou Flags" (1996), " Cruisin,' Stylin,' and Pedal-Scrapin': The Art of the Lowrider Bicycle" (1998), "Muffler Men, Munecos and Other Welded Wonders: Folk Art from Automotive Debris" (1999), and "Botanica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels."