Emilie M. Townes

Currently Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Religion and Black Studies at Boston University School of Theology. Former Dean emerita and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter University Distinguished Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Past president of the American Academy of Religion. Past president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion.

Publications include Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil (2006); Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care (1998); Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope (1993); and In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness (1995). Dr. Towns is an ordained American Baptist clergywoman.