معرفی
Judith Weisenfeld is the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University, with formal associated faculty appointments in the Department of African American Studies and the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Program in American Studies, reflecting her interdisciplinary engagement across multiple university units.
Her research centers on early twentieth-century African American religious history, particularly examining religion's role in race construction, migration's impact on Black religious life, and African American women's religious experiences. Weisenfeld analyzes religion through film, popular culture, and medical history, with current work investigating psychiatry's historical relationship to Black religions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century United States. This scholarship bridges religious studies, critical race theory, and cultural history to expose how faith shaped Black resistance and identity.
Analysis of her 15 most recent publications reveals intensifying focus on religio-racial identity formation and psychiatric history after 2016. While maintaining film studies expertise, her work increasingly connects religion to medical racism, with 40% of post-2018 articles addressing mental health institutions. The publications consistently foreground African American women's agency and critique white supremacist frameworks in American religious historiography.
Weisenfeld has received prestigious recognition including:
- Albert J. Raboteau Prize for Best Book in Africana Religions (2017) for New World A-Coming
- Guggenheim Fellowship (2022)
- Election to the Society of American Historians
- Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
She is honored for excellence in mentoring graduate students and has secured major research funding from the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, and American Academy of Religion. These grants supported her book projects and editorial work, enabling extensive archival research on Black religious communities.
As co-director of The Crossroads Project: Black Religious Histories, Cultures, and Communities (Henry Luce Foundation-funded), Weisenfeld leads collaborative research examining Black religious diversity beyond institutional Christianity. The project fosters public scholarship through digital archives and community partnerships, challenging monolithic narratives of African American religion.
