Michele E. Watkins is assistant professor of theology at St. John’s University, Queens NY. 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). Watkins has contributed chapters to Faith, Reason, and Theosis (Fordham University Press) and the forthcoming volume, The Political Theology of Paul Tillich (Lexington Press, 2024). Her current research focuses on the material and interreligious dynamics of deification and soteriology. She is the immediate past Executive Director of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, the oldest scholarly guild dedicated to teaching and research on the varieties of religious experience within the Africana diaspora.