My name is Joe Winters and I am a Professor in the Departments of Religion and Africana Studies. My interests lie at the intersection of black religious thought, black studies, and critical theory. My research examines the ways black literature and aesthetics develop alternative configurations of the sacred, profanation, and secularity in response to the religious underpinnings of anti-black violence and coloniality. My first book, Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress was published by Duke University Press in 2016. My second book, The Disturbing Profanity: Hip Hop, Blackness, and the Sacred was published in August 2025 also by Duke University Press.
Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress, 2016
https://www.dukeupress.edu/hope-draped-in-black
The Disturbing Profane: Hip Hop, Blackness, and the Sacred 2025
https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-disturbing-profane