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Email: melanie.jones@upsem.edu
Phone: 804-278-4216
Location: Richmond
Department: Theology/Ethics/History
Chicago Theological Seminary, Ph.D.
Vanderbilt University Divinity School, M.Div.
Howard University, B.A.
Melanie Jones Quarles is a womanist ethicist, millennial preacher, and intellectual activist. Melanie is Assistant Professor of Ethics, Theology, and Culture and the Inaugural Director of The Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership (KGCCWL). Formerly, Melanie served as the 2018-19 Crump Visiting Professor and Black Religious Scholar-in-Residence at Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX, and Lecturer at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX, American Baptist College in Nashville, TN, Chicago Theological Seminary, and The Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL.
Melanie’s forthcoming manuscript, Up Against A Crooked Gospel: Black Women’s Bodies and the Politics of Redemption, probes the scripting of the body in theology and philosophy that fosters religious, cultural, and moral meaning for the present with particular attention to Black women’s body politics. Melanie engages womanist theological ethics, sacred texts, millennials and faith, Black aesthetics, and popular culture. For her distinguished research, Melanie has received notable fellowships and scholarships, including The Forum for Theological Exploration, The Louisville Institute, Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, Villanova University Center for Church Management, The Henry Luce Foundation, Presbyterian Mission Agency, and the Technology, Innovation & Digital Engagement Lab.
Melanie is a thinking woman of faith embodying radical love and revolutionary justice in the academy, Church, and global community. Melanie is the Co-Founder of The Millennial Womanism Project (TMWP) and Co-Host of the transgenerational womanist public theology platform, The Womanist Salon Podcast. Melanie is a global leader serving professional, international, and service boards and societies, including Alpha Kappa Alpha Educational Advancement Foundation, American Academy of Religion, Black Religious Scholars Group, Society of Christian Ethics, Society of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion, and the Society for the Study of Black Religion. In recognition of her exemplary leadership and scholarship, Melanie was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA.
A third-generation ordained Baptist preacher and sought-after lecturer, Melanie is a leading Black millennial womanist voice with noted academic and popular publications and features on television, radio, and news outlets. Follow Melanie at www.revmelanie.com.
Co-Author, DAMNed to the Earth: Kendrick Lamar, De/colonial Violence, and Earthbound Salvation (Routledge)
Co-Author, The Slay Factor: Beyoncé Unleashing The Black Feminine Divine in a Blaze of Glory (Routledge)
Co-Author, When Caged Bodies Testify: Continental and Diasporan African Women's Memoirs as Sacred Text (Lexington Books)
Author, The Will to Adorn: Beyond Self-Surveillance, Toward a Womanist Ethic of Redemptive Self-Love (Black Theology: An International Journal)
Author, 'The House That Cannon Built' and 'The Hinges Upon Which the Future Swings’ Walking Through the Valley: Womanist Explorations in the Spirit of Katie Geneva Cannon (Westminster John Knox Press, 2022)
