Joseph R. Winters (NHC Fellow, 2024–25)

Joseph R. Winters is an associate professor at Duke University in religious studies and African and African American studies. He also holds secondary appointments in the Department of English and in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. His interests lie at the intersection of Black religious thought, Black studies, and critical theory. More specifically, his research examines the ways Black literature and aesthetics develop alternative configurations of the sacred, piety, (Black) spirit, and secularity in response to the religious underpinnings of anti-Black violence and coloniality. His first book, Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress was published by Duke University Press in 2016. His second book, titled The Disturbing Profane: Hip Hop Between Blackness and the Sacred, will be published by Duke University Press in the fall of 2025.

Selected Publications

• Winters, Joseph R. The Disturbing Profane: Hip Hop Between Blackness and the Sacred. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2025. Forthcoming.
• Winters, Joseph R. “Interrupting the Sanctity of Man: Wynter, Imperial Piety, and the Unruly Sacred.” In Words Made Flesh: Sylvia Wynter and Religion, edited by Justine Bakker, and David Kline. Fordham University Press, 2025. Forthcoming.
• Winters, Joseph R. “Sovereignty, Blackness, and the Promise of Affectable Flesh.” In Decoloniality in the break of Global Blackness, edited by Michaeline Crichlow, and Patricia Northover. London: Routledge Press, 2025. Forthcoming.
• Winters, Joseph R. “Adorno, Black Studies, and Critical Race Theory.” In The Oxford Handbook of Adorno, edited by Henry Pickford and Martin Shuster. London: Oxford Academic, 2024.
• Winters, Joseph R. Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.