by Nadia Milad Issa
Dr. Ashley Coleman Taylor is currently appointed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Religious Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies. Degrees: earned a Ph.D. in Religion at Emory University, an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a B.A. in Religious Studies and Psychology from Spelman College. Dr. Coleman Taylor’s research foci are Black Feminism (its framework to analyze race/racialization, immigration, citizenships, scientific racism, and ability), Black genders and sexualities, pragmatism, queer of color critique, Africana religions, Puerto Rican studies, and Atlanta studies.
As an interdisciplinary ethnographer of circum-Caribbean descent, Dr. Coleman Taylor specializes in the intersecting lived experiences of Black embodiment, Black genders, and Africana religious practices in Puerto Rico and her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Coleman Taylor’s manuscript-in-progress, tentatively titled, Majestad Negra: Race, Class, Gender and Religious Experience in the Puerto Rican Imaginary, is an intersectional Black feminist approach to race, class, gender, and coloniality in Boriken (Puerto Rico), which was a finalist for the University of Illinois/National Women’s Studies Association First Book Prize.
Nadia Milad Issa:
Why did you become interested in the study of religion?
Dr. Ashley Coleman Taylor:
I am very clear about why I chose the study of religion. I grew up in the South, I grew up in Atlanta. My daddy’s family is from Alabama, [and] my mama’s family is from the Caribbean and Florida. I always have had these moments throughout my life where I was struck by the ways that religion impacts people’s daily lives, their decisions, [and] how they view others. I didn’t grow up in the church, I didn’t grow up Christian, my Mama was agnostic, [and] my Daddy went to church every now and then, but we didn’t grow up in this traditional Christian household like my peers and family members on my father’s side. That wasn’t our world, so I was always fascinated by this idea of religion, this idea of Christianity, and how and why it controls so many people’s lives.
Nadia Milad Issa:
What influenced your theoretical approach in graduate school? How have your theoretical interests changed over time?
Dr. Ashley Coleman Taylor:
I actually had the same theoretical approach since I was in undergrad. I started off as a Psychology major with a double minor in Spanish and Dance, and then I switched to a double major in Religion and Psychology. I was in a program through the National Institute of Mental Health, it was an undergrad program called, NIMH Core, they used to have it, but they don’t have it anymore, but it was a requirement [where] we work with a mentor and then we do our own research projects. I, somehow, looked up “psychology of religion professors” or something, and I actually found somebody at Emory University who literally combined my two majors, John Snarey. So, Dr. Snarey was very interested in Jamesian pragmatism, he was very interested in Kohlbergian moral development, [and] I had been interested in this theoretical approach since undergrad. I think I even took a class called Pragmatism of Religion. I don’t know if it was in undergraduate or graduate school, but I [have] been interested in the daily lived experiences of Black women as it relates to religion and doing that type of work through my research for a long time.
I learned about pragmatism, [and] I learned about Black feminism at Spelman, and this has changed how I have developed [my version of] Black feminist pragmatism. I have always been interested in decision-making, morality, and how, of course, how religion informs that. I have been interested in how people experience religion and religion as experience, so the way that I approach religion is as experience. It is the lived, the felt, the embodied, the corporeal, and that is very Jamesian.
Nadia Milad Issa:
I remember a colleague of mine saying that Dr. Coleman Taylor is very Jamesian!
Dr. Ashley Coleman-Taylor:
Really?! I’m glad people see it because I love William James! One of my exams in grad school was on pragmatism, [and] another part of that story is that I knew that I wanted to go to Emory and work with Dr. Snarey in grad school. I wanted a Ph.D. in Religion, and I wanted to be a religion professor, know I knew this, you know, at nineteen. I was told that “you got to get a Ph.D. in Religion.” I wanted to work with Dr. Snarey at Emory [University]. I’m a Capricorn, so I have always been like, “direct path, what’s the plan?” So, I was like, I want to come to Emory, and “I want to work with you,” and Dr. Snarey was like, “well, you have to get a Masters first. We don’t allow people in without a Masters.” So, I was like, “I don’t want an MDiv, I’m not interested in studying anything Christian, I’m not interested in the Bible or to exegete the text, I don’t want to do that, that’s not what I do, I’m not interested.” Dr. Snarey was like, “Well, why don’t you get a Master of Education? You can go to Harvard.” Moral development, as a field, was developed at Harvard at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). So, Dr. Snarey was like, “You should go there. That is where the field started, you can learn more about it.” There were still some people around who were still very Kohlbergian and Carol Gilligan scholars [and] I actually got a chance to take a class with one of Dr. Snarey’s former students. It was kind of the perfect time for me to go there. I did a Master of Education in Human Development and Psychology, which still helped me to form my understanding of decision-making, daily praxis, and how religion showed up in everyday lived experiences. Then, I went to Emory and ended up working with Dr. Snarey.
I also worked with Dianne Stewart, an Africana Religion professor, and Don Seeman in Anthropology of Religion; that was my core committee. One thing that I do wish I did in undergrad was branch out and take classes in other departments, I only did that once or twice, and I didn’t get other professors with different theoretical approaches outside of Religion; I didn’t have them commenting and reading my work. Looking back, I definitely wish I would have branched out and found more mentors.
Nadia Milad Issa:
Are there any newer theoretical approaches that you are interested in exploring, developing, or creating?
Dr. Ashley Coleman Taylor:
I am honestly trying to dig down into Black feminist pragmatism and what exactly I mean by that, and that is where my mind is at, especially while writing my book. I want to be able to describe the ways that Black feminist pragmatism can inform ethnographic methods and data collection.
Nadia Milad Issa:
What is your definition of Black feminist pragmatism?
Dr. Ashley Coleman Taylor:
I’ll start with pragmatism. I am attracted to pragmatism because it is about the actions of the individual. It developed in a period where [William] James was pushing back against what he called “armchair philosophers,” who would just theorize and not actually put [research] into action. Now, why Black feminism? I just love this socio-political grounding of Black feminism, and to think about them together, and have this approach to intersectionality, care work, centering Black women, and the lived experience of gender and how that looks [like]. It is not just about Black women for me, this is about lived experiences of gender, and yes, we can readily see them in the lives of Black women, but it is more expansive than that for me. I see Black feminism and pragmatism as being equal partners in being able to build a different world. Black feminism is the vision, and pragmatism is the praxis, I’d say, a way of thinking of action and the necessity of action. This is why I also love pragmatism; I wrote a chapter, [and] this is probably not going to be in my book, that I really was excited about using pragmatism to be able to understand African diasporic religion because there are different elements that construct pragmatism. One of them being pluralism, [and] we know that in these African religions, it is the spirit who, together [with humans], form the tradition. You have meliorism, which is a way of constructing the world where humans work alongside God to construct the world. So, it is not just an almighty, all-powerful God who controls everything, so James was even pushing back against Christianity. It was meliorism where God and people work together to form the world, and I was like, “well, that is what happens in Africana Religions.” Another one was radical empiricism, where experience and the world are always in creation, so there is no finite moment of stopping, but it is always moving towards better and moving towards more. Maybe it will be an article one day.
About the Interviewer
Nadia Milad Issa is a first year graduate student in the Department of Religious studies. Their research interests include Spiritual Reparations, Regla de Ocha-Ifá (Lukumí), Candomblé, Umbanda, Dance, Africana Studies, Anthropology, Ethnography, Autoethnography, Afrikan-derived Dance and Music Traditions, Sacred Materialities, Perpetual Catastrophe, Recoverability, and Rituals.
