Dr. Michele E. Watkins
The Surly Womanist
"You're too pretty to be so surly."
These were words spoken to me by a senior scholar in the academy, that I have since embraced. They are a powerful reflection of the societal expectation for the disinherited to "put on a smile," conjure joy, and mask suffering. This expectation often arises in social spaces where unmasking certain truths about experience, identity, and structural evil would surely be disruptive.
My name is Dr. Michele E. Watkins. I am a womanist theologian which means that my approach to spirituality and God-talk venerates the flesh and blood experiences of women of African descent and their communities as a primary lens for reasoning, holds Spirit as a theological norm, survival as an ethical norm, and situates black women's secular and religious survival intelligences as its methodological sources.
A surly womanist engages in the work of doing theology in a way that departs from the Western intellectual tradition as an infantry discourse to a certain degree. Surly womanists embrace smile, furrow and frown in the face of white dominative systems, or demonarchy. We refuse to "put on a smile" for the sake of respectability or cultural deference. The "furrow and the frown" are important for disrupting ideologies and praxes and the "smile" necessary to co-create opportunities for creative dialogue and social transformation. Surly womanism is a posture whereby theological and religious inquiry and discourses that devalue Africana women's ways of knowing and being are courageously contended against within the church, community, and academy.
Welcome to the site, The Surly Womanist,™ created as a space to learn more about my ministry of sacred disruption and intervention as a public scholar, educator, and surly womanist theologian.
About Our Surly Womanist Dr. Michele E. Watkins
Dr. Michele E. Watkins is a scholar, theological educator, and activist who works at the intersection of religion, culture, and social justice as a womanist systematic theologian. Her areas of expertise are systematic, black and womanist, and patristic theologies with interest in the continuities between African American religion and Orthodox theology more broadly.
She is the author of Deification of the Desacralized: Critical Correlations Among Womanist & Orthodox Theologies (currently under review with Fordham University Press) and the coauthor of Unmasking Racism: Coloring with Love for the Church, Community, and Academy (United Methodist General Board of Higher Education, 2023). Dr. Watkins has contributed chapters to Faith, Reason, and Theosis (Fordham University Press) and The Political Theology of Paul Tillich (Lexington Press, 2024). Her current research focuses on the material and interreligious dynamics of deification and soteriology.
Dr. Watkins holds a PhD in Theology and Ethics and Master of Divinity from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary; Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Howard University in Washington, DC (Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude); Certifications in Non-Profit Management and Higher Education from Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) and Derek Bok School of Education (Harvard University), respectively.
Dr. Watkins is currently the Assistant Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at St. John's Univerisity (Queens NY). Prior to her appointment at St. John's, Dr. Watkins served under academic appointments at the University of San Diego, where she was recognized for educational excellence in inclusive pedagogy, and Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO.
PhD Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL
MDiv Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL
BS Howard University, Washington, DC
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Teaching
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Courses TaughtAugustine, Niebuhr, and Malcolm X on Salvation & Sin (online - synchronous) Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas (residential) Black Liberation Theology (residential) Black & Womanist Theologies (residential and online – synchronous) Black Catholicism in the U.S. (online) Christianity & Its Practice (residential) Theology of the Cappadocian Mothers (residential) Feminist & Womanist Theologies (residential) Introduction to Christian Theology (residential) Post-Theism in Moral Theology (hybrid) Perspectives on Christianity (residential and asynchronous) Religion & Hip-Hop (residential and online – synchronous) Theology of Paul Tillich (residential) Theological Imagination of Toni Morrisson (hybrid) United Methodist History (online – asynchronous) United Methodist Doctrine (residential and online – asynchronous) Womanist Theology: A Primer (online, synchronous) Womanist Theology & Literature (residential)
