Ericka S. Dunbar, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Education
- Ph.D., Drew University
- Th.M., Candler School of Theology at Emory
- M.Div., Interdenominational Theological Center
- B.S., University of Florida
Biography
Ericka Shawndricka Dunbar joined the Department of Religion at Baylor University in the fall semester 2022. Her area of research focuses broadly on gender, ethnicity, violence, intersectional oppression, sexual(ized) abuse, colonialism, trauma, and diasporic studies. More specifically, she engages in intersectional analyses of sexualized, gender-based, and colonial oppression in the Hebrew Bible. Her first book, Trafficking Hadassah: Collective Trauma, Cultural Memory, and Identity in the Book of Esther and the African Diaspora (Routledge, 2022) is based on her doctoral dissertation and is a dialogical cultural study of sexual trafficking in the book of Esther and during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In this project, Dr. Dunbar analyzes how ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, and colonialism intersect and interact in instances of sexual trafficking both in ancient and contemporary contexts.
Dr. Dunbar has experience teaching in both undergraduate and seminary settings. She is also an ordained elder in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. She is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Society for the Study of Black Religion, and the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians.
Dr. Dunbar is married to Johnathan Hill.
Academic Interests and Research
Religion and Social Change, Africana Biblical Studies, Africana Diaspora Studies, Trauma Studies, Ethics, Cultural Studies, Women & Gender Studies, Gender-Based Violence, Children in the Bible, Intersectionality, Polyvocality, Human Trafficking discourses, the role and impact of religion on individual and collective identities.
Publications
Smith, Mitzi, General Editor. Angela Parker and Ericka Dunbar, Co-editors. Bitter the Chastening Rod”: African American Interpretation in the Age of #BLM, #SayHerName and #MeToo. Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, February 15, 2022.
Trafficking Hadassah: Collective Trauma, Cultural Memory, and Identity in the Book of Esther and in the African Diaspora. Taylor & Francis Group. November 15, 2021.
Sidney K. Berman, Paul L. Leshota, Ericka S. Dunbar, Musa W. Dube and Malebogo Kgalemang (eds). Mother Earth, Mother Africa, and Biblical Studies: Interpretations in the Context of Climate Change. 29 BiAS – Bible in Africa Studies, University of Bamberg Press, 2021.
“Sisters of the Soil... Surviving Collective, Cultural Traumatization: Intertextualities between Hagar, the Ethiopian Virgin Girls in the Book of Esther, and Mother Africa” in Mother Earth, Postcolonial and Liberation Theologies. Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. August 19, 2021.
“For Such a Time as This? #Us Too: Representations of Sexual Trafficking, Collective Trauma and Horror in the Book of Esther” in the Bible and Critical Theory Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2. December 2019. https://www.bibleandcriticaltheory.com/issues/vol-15-no-2-2019-bible-and-critical-theory/
“Children in Proverbs,” co-written with Dr. Kenneth Ngwa, in T & T Clark Handbook of Children and Childhood in the Biblical World, Bloomsbury T & T Clark, Edited by Sharon Betsworth and Julie F. Parker. March 21, 2019.
Professional Awards
Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, 2020-2022.
Public Scholarship Fellow, Sacred Writes, 2020.
Forum for Theological Exploration Doctoral Fellow, 2016-17; 2018-19
Courses taught at Baylor
- REL 1310: Christian Scriptures