Emilie M. Townes

Dr. Emilie M. Townes, an American Baptist clergywoman, is a native of Durham, North Carolina. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University.

Dr. Townes was the Dean and University Distinguished Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society (Divinity) and University Distinguished Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies (College of Arts and Science) at Vanderbilt University, becoming the first African American to serve as Dean of the Divinity School from 2013-2023.

She is the former Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale University Divinity School and in the fall of 2005, she was the first African American woman elected to the presidential line of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and served as president in 2008. She was the first African American and first woman to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Yale Divinity School. She is the former Carolyn Williams Beaird Professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Social Ethics at Saint Paul School of Theology.

Editor of two collection of essays, A Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering and Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation; she has also authored Womanist Ethics, Womanist Hope, In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness, Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, and her groundbreaking book, Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. She is co-editor with Stephanie Y. Mitchem of the Faith, Health, and Healing in African American Life and co-editor with the late Katie Geneva Cannon and Angela Sims for the Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader done with was published in November 2011. Her most recent co-editorship is with Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Alison Gise Johnson, and Angela Sims for Walking Through the Valley: Essays: Womanist Explorations in the Spirit of Katie Geneva Cannon (2022).

Townes was elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. She was the first Black woman to serve as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2008 and served a four-year term as president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion from 2012 to 2016. Townes was the first Black woman to serve as the president of the Society of Christian Ethics from 2024-2025. She is the founder of the Womanist Leadership Hub that seeks to be a networking hub for Black women activists, clergy, laity, organizers, scholars, and students to support the justice-oriented work they are engaged in. She joined the Boston University School of Theology faculty in 2024.

Publications

“On Making Silence Loud,” Special Section: Honoring Judith Plaskow, Essays on Plaskow’s Induction to the Women’s Hall of Fame, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Spring 2025. Vol. 42, No. 1, 81-83.

Awards & Honors

William Rainey Harper Award, Religious Education Association, Virtual, 8 July 2025.

Doctor of Divinity, Honoris Causa, United Lutheran Seminary, Gettysburg and Philadelphia, PA, 9 May 2025

2025 University of Chicago Alumni Award for Professional Achievement, Chicago, IL, 1 May 2025

Curriculum Vita