My published scholarship has focused on scriptures as cultural texts, the New Testament in Western imagination, the construction of race and identity in the United States, African American cultural history, and pedagogy in higher education.
Dr. Newton’s areas of interest include theory and method in the study of religion, African American history, the New Testament in Western imagination, American cultural politics, and pedagogy in religious studies. His research explores how people create “scriptures” and how those productions operate in the formation of identities and cultural boundaries.
I’m currently working on two book projects. One is a primer on the critical study of scriptures that has taken place in the last thirty years. The other is a re-examination of key terms from the study of religion thoroughly informed by African American cultural history.
Subject areas: scripture, race, African American religions, American cultural politics, identity, and the Digital Humanities
