Todne Thomas, PhD, is a socio-cultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor of African American Religions at Harvard Divinity School. In collaboration with Afro-Caribbean and African American congregants, Thomas conducts ethnographic research on the racial, spatial, and familial dynamics of black Christian communities in the U.S. Conceptually, her work integrates critical race and kinship theories to understand the racial and moral scripts of evangelicalism and neoliberalism.

She has authored peer-reviewed articles for the Journal of Africana Religions, Anthropology and Humanism, and the Journal of African American Studies. She has also co-edited New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties across the Abrahamic Religions (2017) with Asiya Malik and Rose Wellman.

Her current research examines the familial and spiritual experiences of black evangelicals and the neoliberal displacement of black sacred space.

Selected publications

    New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties across the Abrahamic Religions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)

    “When a Black Church Burns (But Not to the Ground)” Anthropology News, September 2015