Join us for the 2026 African Diaspora Lecture with Dr. Ahmad Greene-Hayes, Associate Professor, African American Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School and the Managing Editor of the Journal of Africana Religions. Dr. Greene-Hayes is an accomplished scholar, teacher, and mentor, and his research and teaching interests include 19th and 20th century African American religious history; race, sexuality, and religion in the Americas; interdisciplinary archive studies; and theories and methods in the study of religion and Black Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Religion with certificates in African American Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies from Princeton University, and his B.A. in History and Africana Studies, with highest honors, from Williams College.
Dr. Greene-Hayes is the author of Underworld Work: Black Atlantic Religion-Making in Jim Crow New Orleans (University of Chicago Press, 2025), and he has published essays in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Africana Religions, Nova Religion, GLQ, and the Journal of African American History, among others. His second book project entitled, Little Richard’s Witness: Liner Notes on Black Religion and Sexuality, is set to be published by Penguin Random House in the Significations Black biography series edited by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 2027, and he is also working on his third book project engaging spiritual encounter in the archive.
Dr. Greene-Hayes’ lecture will focus on his book Underworld Work: Black Atlantic Religion-Making in Jim Crow New Orleans, which offers a rethinking of African American religious history that focuses on the development and evolution of Africana spiritual traditions in Jim Crow New Orleans.
Register now: https://go.unc.edu/Greene-Hayes