David Justice

Postdoctoral Fellow at Baylor University

About


I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at Baylor University in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core program, which is a part of Baylor's Honors College. There I teach interdisciplinary courses that combine my training in theology, religious studies, African American studies, Women and Gender studies, and philosophy. My current research focuses on the theology and activism of Martin Luther King Jr. and how we can theorize a decolonized, holistic understanding of the Beloved Community and begin to construct that community in the here and now.

The research focus for my dissertation was the political theology of Martin Luther King Jr. There, I explored the fundamental transformation and, at times, destruction necessary to make the Beloved Community a reality. To make this argument, I drew on King's rootedness in the Black church and put him into conversation with feminist, womanist, and decolonial thought.  I hope that this work will continue the recovery of the radical King and help put his theology into conversation with current activists in new ways.  My dissertation director was Leonard Cornell McKinnis II

I have been a teaching assistant or lead instructor for various undergraduate courses since 2013. My Major Issues in Philosophy course was named one of the Students’ Choice “Best Classes at GU” at Greenville University, and I qualified for the “List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students” at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I also completed a year long Culturally Responsive Teaching fellowship in the Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning in 2020.