Traci C. West
Publications
Books
Solidarity & Defiant Spirituality: Africana Lessons on Religion, Racism, and Ending Gender Violence
"Traci West's text is radically innovative, critically startling, and defiantly embodied. Her transnational approach to gender violence takes seriously the role of religion, spirituality, culture, and the wisdom of African women leaders. It utilizes courage, wit, and vast research findings extracted from many parts of the world."
- Fulata Lusungu Moyo, Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians
Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women's Lives Matter
"In line with the title of her book Disruptive Christian Ethics, West calls for strategic resistance. Eschewing simple opposition to dominant culture, West argues for identifying and examining the multiple and particular contexts of ethical problems in determining a liberatory response, with special emphasis on how institutions structure our moral lives. West notes the danger of accommodating to the very assumptions that we are trying to oppose."
- Laura Stivers, author of A Home for All: Building a Moral Economy
Wounds of the Spirit: Black Women, Violence, and Resistance Ethics
"West gives us a palpable sense of both the anguish and resilience, not only of the women whose stories she frames, but of her own in grappling with the myths and stereotypes of black women and their experience of racism and violence...West walks her bridges skillfully, staying true to the complexity of black women's lives—lives lived in the variegated intersections of sexism and racism and, perhaps, classism."
Defending Same-sex Marriage
As an African American lesbian I was delighted that the first wedding I performed would be a celebration for Christian lesbians of color who wanted to express their love for one another publicly while seeking the support and blessings of God and of their family and community. Officiating at this service was also a way for me to live out my theology…God’s radically inclusive love, calling us to acts of justice.”
Co-edited and Co-authored
Co-editor with Elizabeth Bounds, Pamela Brubaker, Jane Hicks, Marilyn Legge, Rebecca Peters. Justice in the Making: Feminist Social Ethics by Beverly W. Harrison.Westminster John Knox, 2004.
Co-author with Karen Oliveto and Kelly Turney. Holy Conversations: Talking about Homosexuality, A Congregational Resource. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2005.
Selected Articles and Book Chapters
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“Foreword,” in eds., Aana Marie Vigen and Christian Scharen, Ethnography as Christian Ethics and Theology, A Fully Revised 2nd Edition, New York: T&T Clark, 2024.
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“Misogyny and the Stench of White Supremacist Christianity” in eds., George Yancy and Bill Bywater, In Sheep’s Clothing: The Idolatry of White Christian Nationalism, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2024.
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“The Personal and Political Gendering of Black Love,” Symposium on Black Dignity by Vincent Lloyd, University of Notre Dame, Keough School of Global Affairs, Contending Modernities: Exploring how religious and secular forces interact in the modern world, July 18, 2023, Read here >
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“Disruption,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 42 no 2 (2022): 281-287
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“Embracing Conflict,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 38 no 1(Spring 2022): 23-25
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Interview, Black Agenda Report, January 2019. Read here >
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“Black Bisexual Queering of Anti-Violence Christian Ethics” in Modern Believing: The Journal of Theological Liberalism (Liverpool University Press), Special Issue: Method, Pedagogy, Power and the Question of Black Queer Theology, January 1, 2019, Volume 60, Issue 1. Read here >
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“Confronting U.S. Moral Hypocrisy on Child Soldiers, Inventing Antiracist Solidarity” in Susan Wilhauk, eds, Female Child Soldiers, Gender Violence and Feminist Theology. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019.
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“Confronting Black-Asian Conflicts,” Book review response to Ki Joo Choi’s Disciplined By Race: Theological Ethics and the Problem of Asian American Identity, Syndicate, 10/8/2019, https://syndicate.network/symposia/theology/disciplined-by-race/
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“#Time’sUp for Church Excuses” in Ray Waddle, ed., Reflections: Sex, Gender, Power: A Reckoning, Fall 2018: 47-49. Read here >
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“Is Christian political theology too conservative to undermine sexual violence?” Political Theology Network, October 29, 2018. Read here >
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Interview, On Race: 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis, ed., George Yancy, (Oxford University Press, 2017).
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“Actively Listening to Testimonies about Rape Culture and Religion” in Teaching Theology & Religion, Special Issue: Teaching Sexuality in the Classroom, eds, Kate Ott and Darryl Stephens, 20, no. 2, April 2017. Read here >
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“The Prophets and Ethics” in The Oxford Handbook of The Prophets, ed. Carolyn J. Sharp, (Oxford University Press, 2016).
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"Gay Rights and the Misuse of Martin" in The Domestication of Martin Luther King Jr.: Clarence B. Jones, Right-Wing Conservatism, and the Manipulation of the King Legacy, eds, Lewis V. Baldwin and Rufus Burrow Jr. (Cascade Books, 2013).
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"Civil Rights Rhetoric in Media Coverage of Marriage Equality Debates: Massachusetts and Georgia" in From Every Mountainside: Black Churches and the Broad Terrain of Civil Rights, ed., R. Drew Smith (State University Press, 2013).
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"When a White Man-God is the Truth and the Way for Black Christians" in Christology and Whiteness: What Would Jesus Do?, ed., George Yancy (Routledge, 2012).
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“What Does Anti-racist Feminist Christian Social Ethics Look Like?” in New Feminist Christianity: Many Voices, Many Views, eds., Mary Hunt and Diann Neu (Woodstock, VT: Skylight, 2010).
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“Extending Black Feminist Sisterhood in the Face of Violence: Fanon, White Women and Veiled Muslim Women” in Maria del Guadalupe, Kathryn T. Gines, Donna-Dale L. Marcano, eds., Convergences: Black feminism and Continental Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010).