Y’all, we have come to the conclusion of our State of The Black Church series. Did not our hearts burn within us? Ours did! But before we conclude, we thought it necessary to invite Dr. Erika Gault to the table to close out this series by talking to us about the Black church in the digital space. Ekemini is sitting at the table with Dr. Gault to discuss her book, Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip Hop. Her research captures the dynamics of the digital religious lives of Black millennials on social media. Pull up a chair and have a seat at the table with us!

Learn more about Dr. Erika Gault:

Dr. Gault – a scholar of Black religion and culture – is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Program at the University of Arizona

Dr. Gault graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a doctorate in American Studies. Dr. Gault’s scholarly work demonstrates a sustained focus on the impact and outcomes of religion and technology in Black life. Her work focuses on the use of online social networks in both the research and curation of religious life among Black young adults. She has delivered keynote addresses and published a number of papers regionally, nationally, and internationally on the topics of hip-hop, religion, and digital ethnography.

Given Dr. Gault’s innovative approach to ethnography, she was awarded the 2018-2019 Louisville Institute First Book Grant for Scholars of Color. She has just completed her first single-author volume on the digital religious lives of young Black Christians with New York University Press titled Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip Hop. It is the first work of its kind on digital Black religion. She is the co-editor of the book Beyond Christian Hip Hop: Towards Christians and Hip Hop. Other recent publications include “My People Are Free: Theorizing the Digital Black Church,” which appeared in the spring 2020 issue of Fire!!! The Multimedia Journal of Black Studies, for which she served as guest editor.

Dr. Gault is an innovator in the use of digital tools for the documentation of Black religion. She is the organizer and co-convener of the Africana Digital Humanities Institute (Africana DHi) and the live digital event "Gathering in the Moment: Mobilizing the Digital Black Church's Prophetic Witness" which drew over 15,000 viewers. In 2019, she received the Arizona Champion Award , which honors University of Arizona faculty members for excellence in research and service. Her work regarding the digital-religious lives of young adults has been shared through various media outlets, including The Conversation, Religion News Services, and The Christian Century, and as part of the Smithsonian African American Museum of African American History Black Millennials and Faith Conversation series.

Dr. Gault is a faculty fellow in the University’s Center for Digital Humanities and the Adobe Faculty Institute. Her engagement activities outside the University include mentoring teens in high school debate through the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tucson and serving as an ordained elder in her denomination. She has won numerous slam competitions, and was the first woman to win the Toronto International Poetry Slam.

Twitter: @erikagault

Facebook: @erikadellisegault

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