Jualynne Dodson

Professor Emertius
Department of Sociology

PhD University of California-Berkeley, 1985

422 Berkey Hall
509 E. Circle Drive
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-432-8668
dodsonj2@msu.edu

BIOGRAPHY

Jualynne Elizabeth Dodson was born in Pensacola, Florida and earned the PhD in Sociology of Religion from the University of California, Berkeley. She served as Research Director for Atlanta University School of Social Work, and Dean of Seminary at Union Theological Seminary in New York city. Dodson founded the African Atlantic Research Team at University of Colorado, Boulder from which MSU invited her to serve as ‘John Hannah Distinguished Professor’ before recruiting her to join the faculty and align AART’s work with the campus. Subsequently, the MSU invited Dodson to be a tenured member of the faculty where she regularly teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Classical Theory, Qualitative Research Methods, Contemporary Communities, Developing Society, and Migration and the African Diaspora.

The Award Winning African Atlantic Research Team (AART) that accompanied Dodson’s recruitment to the East Lansing campus is a mentoring collective that guides undergraduate students of color toward earning the PhD. At least five have studied research method in Cuba with AART while conducting individual investigations. Dodson received the Association of Black Sociologists’ “Life Time Achievement A. Wade Smith Award for distinguished Teaching and Mentoring Service” while the Research Team also has earned Awards of Excellence for its accomplishments. More than a dozen AART students have completed post-graduate Masters and Ph.D. Team members also have earned such academic excellence awards as Cum Laude diplomas, Phi Beta Kappa, Marshall Fellows, and ‘Deans List’ graduation. Significantly, African American men are well represented in ARRT’s statistic of 0% attrition rate with only one student, of more than thirty, not completing the Bachelor’s degree. The Team’s accomplishments are exceptional and above proportional achievements of the population in most U.S. colleges and universities.

Dodson has authored numerous journal articles, encyclopedia inclusions, book chapters, and her book publications include: Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora; Engendering Church: Women, Power, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Sacred Spaces: Religious Traditions of Oriente Cuba, and Afro-Centric Education: Toward a Non-Deficit Perspective in Services to Families & Children. She is regularly invited to consult and speak nationally as well as internationally, including the United Nation’s Education Scientific and Cultural Organization’s selection of her research on Cuba’s distinct religions to be included in Conference Proceedings on “Intangible Heritage, Sharing Cultures,” held in Portugal’s Atlantic Ocean Azores Islands.

CURRENT RESEARCH

2021

“Southern African Methodist Women: Consciousness, Resistance, and Organizational Change,” journal length article submitted for publication.

“African Diaspora and Church Building: Mt. Sinai Holy Church of Oriente Cuba,” journal length article.

“Ralph Ellison, Sociology, and Curriculum: Teaching U.S. African American Culture and Sacred Music,” chapter accepted for publication in American Modern Language Association’s volume, Approaches to Teaching Works of Ralph Ellison.

“Scarce Economic Resources-Effective CVID Management: Cuba’s Public HealthCare System” chapter accepted for publication by Trans-Atlantic Roundtable on Race and Religion volume, Racialization and Black Health: Transatlantic Social and Religious Perspectives, Rutledge Press.

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMS

African American & African Studies

PUBLICATIONS

“Charles H. Long- Intellectual Godfather to the African Atlantic Research Team and Cuba’s Distinct Religions,” 2020. With this Root About My Person: Charles H. Long and New Directions in the Study of Religion J. Reid and D. Carrasco, eds. Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press.

“Epistemological and Philosophical Roots of African Descendants” in Religions, Worldviews and Afro-Latin American and Caribbean Theologies: Contemporary Reflections, José Mario Méndez ed. Costa Rica.

“Black Theology Project: Organizational Gift, Intellectual Apparatus – Legacy of Dr. James Cone,” Journal of Africana Religions. DOI: 10.5325/jafrireli.7.2.2019.0273 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jafrireli.7.2.2019.0273.

“The African Diaspora: Religious Practices,” A. Possamai & A. J. Blasi (Eds.), SAGE International Encyclopedia of Sociology of Religion. London, United Kingdom: SAGE.

Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora, Editors; William Ackah, Jualynne Dodson and Drew Smith, Routledge Press, Studies in Religion Series.

“Church Women’s Legacy of Power: U.S. African Methodist, Religion, Culture and Spirituality” in Africa and the African Diaspora, Routledge Press, Studies in Religion Series.

“Ya’ Need the African Diaspora to Know Black Church Building: Mt. Sinai Holy Church in Cuba in The Americas’ Portion of the African Diaspora,” accepted for publication, Racialization and Black Health: Transatlantic Social and Religious Perspectives. R. Drew Smith, Stephanie C. Boddie, Bertis English and Gosnell Yorke, eds. Oxford, UK:Routledge Press.

“Epistemological and philosophical roots of African Descendants,” 2020. Religions, Worldviews and Afro-Latin American and Caribbean Theologies: Contemporary Reflections José Mario Méndez ed. Costa Rica

“The African Diaspora: Religious Practices,” A. Possamai & A. J. Blasi (Eds.), The SAGE International encyclopedia of sociology of religion. London, United Kingdom: SAGE.

Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora, Editors; William Ackah, Jualynne Dodson and Drew Smith, Routledge Press, Studies in Religion Series;

“Church Women’s Legacy of Power: U.S. African Methodist,” Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora, Routledge Press, Studies in Religion Series;

“Contextualizing Women and Distinct Religious Practices in Oriente Cuba,” in New Frontiers in the Study of the Global African Diaspora: Between Unchartered Themes and Alternative Representations, Michigan State University Press.

Contextualizing Women and Distinct Religious Practices in Oriente Cuba,” in New Frontiers in the Study of the Global African Diaspora: Between Unchartered Themes and Alternative Representations, Michigan State University Press.

“So Just What is “Diaspora” in The Conversation, http://theconversation.com/record-high-global-migration-may-give-new-meaning-to-diaspora-59365

“Neighborhood, Festival, and Ethnography - The African Diaspora in the Americas: Extended Review Comparative Essay” for Transforming Anthropology. -- Volumes reviewed; Inside El Barrio: A Bottom-Up View of Neighborhood Life in Castro’s Cuba by Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press: Kings for Three Days: The Play of Race and Gender in an Afro-Ecuadorian Festival by Jean Muteba Rahier; and The Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban Religion by Stephan Palmié. Chicago, IL, and London, UK: The University of Chicago Press.

“Cuba’s Distinct Religious Traditions” in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd edition, edited by George Ritzer. Maiden, Oxford: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.

Transforming Research & Academic Thinking, Harriette Pipes McAdoo: An Intellectual Biography, Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd Edition.

“On Roy Bryce LaPorte, Women, Power and Church: A Research Scholar Meets the African Diaspora in the Caribbean.” Wadabagei, Journal of the Caribbean, October.

“Qualitative Field Research – Methods and Theory,” Method(e)s African Social Sciences Methodology/Revue africaine de méthodlogie des sciences sociales, Journal, Council Development Social Science Research in Africa: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23754745.2015.1017292

Montgomery, B.L., J. E. Dodson and *S. M. Johnson, “Guiding the Way: Mentoring Graduate Students and Junior Faculty for Sustainable Academic Careers.” SAGE Open (October-December), doi: 10.1177/2158244014558043.