Judith Weisenfeld

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| education = Barnard College (AB)
Princeton University (MA, PhD)

| occupation = Scholar, professor

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| employer = Princeton University

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| notable_works = African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905–1945.
Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949
New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration

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| title = Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion

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| website = {{URL|judithweisenfeld.com/}}

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Judith Weisenfeld is an American scholar of religion. She is Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University, where she is also the Chair of the Department of Religion.{{Cite web|date=2016-08-22|title=Judith Weisenfeld|url=https://religion.princeton.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/judith-weisenfeld/|access-date=2020-06-15|website=Department of Religion|language=en}} Her research primarily focuses on African-American religion in the first half of the 20th century. In 2019, Weisenfeld was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Early life and education

Weisenfeld was raised Catholic in Queens, NYC, and attended Barnard College,{{cite news|last1=Booker|first1=Vaughn A.|title=Religious Movements of the Great Migration: An Interview with Judith Weisenfeld|url=http://religionandpolitics.org/2017/02/07/religious-movements-of-the-great-migration-an-interview-with-judith-weisenfeld/|accessdate=14 February 2018|work=Religion & Politics|date=7 February 2017}}{{Cite web|last=Singh|first=Simran Jeet|date=2021-03-24|title=Judith Weisenfeld, "Anti-Racism as a Spiritual Practice"|url=https://religionnews.com/2021/03/24/judith-weisenfeld-anti-racism-as-a-spiritual-practice/|access-date=2021-05-21|website=Religion News Service|language=en-US}} where she graduated cum laude in 1986 with an A. B. degree in religion.{{Cite web|url=http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs19981029-01.2.25&e=------199-en-20--5842--txt-txIN-Columbia-----|title=Barnard Professor Lectures History of Harlem YWCA|last=Rabinowitz|first=Mikaela|date=29 October 1998|website=spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu|publisher=Columbia Daily Spectator|language=en|access-date=2018-02-15}} She then attended Princeton for her M.A. and Ph.D. (1992), with her dissertation focusing on the Black women's branch of the YWCA in New York in the first half of the 20th century.{{cite news|last1=Patel|first1=Ushma|title=Weisenfeld examines religious motivation in activist, artistic fields|url=https://www.princeton.edu/news/2007/11/05/weisenfeld-examines-religious-motivation-activist-artistic-fields|accessdate=14 February 2018|work=Princeton University|date=November 5, 2007|language=en}}

Career

Her dissertation became the basis for her first book, African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905–1945.{{cite journal|last1=Moore|first1=Cecilia A.|title=African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905–1945. By Judith Weisenfeld. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. viii + 231 pp. $35.00 cloth.|journal=Church History|volume=68|issue=1|year=2009|pages=220–221|issn=0009-6407|doi=10.2307/3170176|jstor=3170176|s2cid=163073625 }}{{cite journal|title=Judith Weisenfeld. African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905–1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1997. Pp. viii, 231. $35.00|journal=The American Historical Review|year=1999|issn=1937-5239|doi=10.1086/ahr/104.2.586}} While in graduate school in Princeton, Weisenfeld also became interested in film, which became a focus of her second book project: Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949.{{cite journal|last1=Butters|first1=Gerald R.|title=Hollywood Be Thy Name and the New Wave of African American Film Scholarship|journal=Reviews in American History|volume=36|issue=1|year=2008|pages=89–94|issn=1080-6628|doi=10.1353/rah.2008.0018|s2cid=143710353}}{{cite journal|last1=Watts|first1=J.|title=Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949. By Judith Weisenfeld. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. xiv, 341 pp. Paper, $24.95|quote={{ISBN|978-0-520-22774-3}}|journal=Journal of American History|volume=94|issue=4|year=2008|pages=1298|issn=0021-8723|doi=10.2307/25095414|jstor=25095414}}{{cite journal|last1=Johnson|first1=Sylvester A.|title=Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=113|issue=5|year=2008|pages=1577–1578|issn=0002-8762|doi=10.1086/ahr.113.5.1577}}{{cite journal|last1=Sherrard|first1=Brooke|title=Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949 – By Judith Weisenfeld|journal=Religious Studies Review|volume=35|issue=3|year=2009|pages=203|issn=0319-485X|doi=10.1111/j.1748-0922.2009.01371_21.x}}{{cite journal|last1=Wright|first1=Benjamin G.|title=Judith Weisenfeld, Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949|journal=The Journal of African American History|volume=93|issue=3|year=2008|pages=454–456|issn=1548-1867|doi=10.1086/JAAHv93n3p454}}

In 2017, Weisenfeld published her third book, New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration.{{cite journal|last1=Angell|first1=Stephen W.|title=Judith Weisenfeld. New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration.|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=123|issue=1|year=2018|pages=247–248|issn=0002-8762|doi=10.1093/ahr/123.1.247}} The book develops a "comprehensive study of the formation of early 20th-century black religious movements",{{Cite news|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4798-8880-1|title=Nonfiction Book Review: New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity During the Great Migration by Judith Weisenfeld. New York Univ., $35 (368p)|quote= {{ISBN|978-1-4798-8880-1}}|date=December 12, 2016|work=Publishers Weekly|access-date=2018-02-15|language=en}} incorporating into her analysis religious practices outside the Christian tradition that has traditionally been the focus of such scholarship.{{cite journal|last1=Moore|first1=Julia Robinson|title=New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration. By Judith Weisenfeld|journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion|volume=85|issue=3|year=2017|pages=853–856|issn=0002-7189|doi=10.1093/jaarel/lfx034}}

Weisenfeld taught at Barnard from 1991 until 2000, then Vassar College, where she earned tenure and chaired the Religion Department and led the Pan-African Studies Program.{{cite news|last1=Raftery|first1=Isolde|title=Faculty, Administration Examine Barnard Tenure – Columbia Daily Spectator|url=http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2003/05/01/faculty-administration-examine-barnard-tenure/|accessdate=14 February 2018|work=Columbia Spectator|date=March 27, 2013}}

She joined Princeton's faculty in 2007. In addition to her appointment as in the Department of Religion as Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor, Weisenfeld is also affiliated with the Department of African American Studies, the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, the Program in American Studies and the Center for the Study of Religion.{{cite web|date=22 August 2016|title=Judith Weisenfeld|url=http://religion.princeton.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/judith-weisenfeld/|accessdate=14 February 2018|website=Department of Religion|publisher=Princeton University}}

Awards and honors

Elected Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019){{Cite web|url=https://www.amacad.org/news/2019-members-announcement|title=Press Release: New 2019 Members Announced|access-date=14 May 2019|website=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|date=17 April 2019 }}
Elected Fellow of the Society of American Historians (2019)
[http://africanareligions.org/raboteau-book-prize-winners/ Albert J. Raboteau Book Prize] for the Best Book in Africana Religions (2017)

Bibliography

ed. with Richard Newman. This Far by Faith: Readings in African-American Women's Autobiography (Routledge, 1996){{Cite journal|last=Taves|first=Ann|date=September 1997|title=This Far by Faith: Readings in African-American Women's Autobiography. Edited by Weisenfeld Judith and Newman Richard. New York: Routledge, 1996. 326 pp.|journal=Church History|language=en|volume=66|issue=3|pages=671–672|doi=10.2307/3169555|issn=1755-2613|jstor=3169555|s2cid=161641790 }}
African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905–1945 (Harvard University Press, 1997)
Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949 (University of California Press, 2007)
New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration (NYU Press, 2017)