Meet Assistant Professor KB Dennis Meade of the Department of Religious Studies, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of African American Studies. Learn what inspires her research and what she finds most fulfilling about teaching.
Where are you from? Where did you study?
I grew up in NYC—namely the area now known as Little Caribbean in Brooklyn and in Rosedale, Queens. My family and I migrated to the US from Jamaica in the late 1980s. I graduated from Bowdoin College and majored in Religious Studies with a minor in Africana Studies. The snow, fresh air, and cold weather in Maine was a very far cry from my three-hour daily commute to high school near Union Square in Manhattan. After graduation, I returned to NYC to work full-time as a program manager for an educational non-profit serving first-generation, college-bound students. During this time, I earned my MA in International and Transcultural Education from Teachers College Columbia University. In 2018 completed my doctoral degree in Religion at Princeton University, in the subfield of Religion, Ethics, and Politics, with a certificate in African American Studies.
What inspired you to pursue your area of study? Please describe your research.
Reflecting on my intellectual journey, I’ve always been enthusiastic about how stories become the anchor for religious meaning-making and ultimately how people see themselves in the world. For example, my fondest memories of the connection between storytelling and religion take place in the storefront Holiness Pentecostal Church in which I grew up. I always inserted myself into the company of grown women conversing about raising wayward children, immigration woes, working as domestics, and their troublesome husbands. I observed and listened to them reason through their life experiences with scriptures and lines from their favorite sermons. These experiences anchor my commitment to studying the intimate and quotidian overlaps between religion, race, politics in the Caribbean and its diaspora. I also had the incredible benefit of learning from and studying with teachers in undergrad and graduate school who affirmed my research interests. You can learn more about my research on my website: www.kijanbloomfield.com
What are you working on right now that excites you the most?
I’m working on my book project based on my field work in a community in Kingston, Jamaica. The most exciting part of the project at the moment is thinking spatially about Black religion. I enjoy thinking about the religious implications of place-making on the part of Black folks and what we can learn from their creative efforts to survive and flourish. This dovetails with my interest and ongoing training in the digital humanities. I’m still a “baby” digital humanist and have been learning about the ethics of presenting narratives in a digital format. There is so much great work being done on the Caribbean and in Black Studies. I’m thinking through how to use digital tools in the study of Black religion.
What is most fulfilling to you about teaching?
The experimental and creative possibilities are endless. I treat each course as an iteration of the dream course I’d like to perfect, with the understanding that it’s the journey of refining, recalibrating, and reframing that’s most important. It has become a standard practice that I discard most of the course outline by the third class meeting. By this point I have a much clearer sense of the class as a whole, and which topics would be most fitting to aid their learning process. (The course policies don’t change though—sorry!) I am also exploring more equitable ways to assess students’ performance and designing meaningful learning activities.
Why did you decide to come to Northwestern?
At Northwestern I have the opportunity to deepen my research and teaching on the Caribbean through a religious studies framework. It’s exciting to be a part of three strong intellectual communities. My colleagues in Religious Studies are supportive and eager to strengthen Northwestern’s offerings in the study of Black/African diaspora religion. I am affiliated faculty in The Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program and I’m also faculty in African American Studies Department by courtesy. I look forward to being in conversation with scholars who are Caribbeanists or scholars interested in critically engaging the region’s history, present, and future. It also helps that Chicago is a big city, it’s a two-hour flight from Toronto, and the local beach (when it’s warm outside) has been a balm for this island girl! Plus, I’ve found very good Jamaican food here in Evanston which I hope will help me survive the colder months.
What’s a fun fact that you want to share with the Northwestern community?
I have recently taken up boxing classes at a local gym. It’s no-contact—just me, the punching bag, and a trainer. But, I can see myself venturing into the ring. Stay tuned!
My professional name, KB Dennis Meade, combines my legal name with the surnames of my family matriarchs from Cuba and Jamaica.