For me, it’s a fact that we are always teacher-students and student-teachers. You may not have read the books that I’ve read, but you live on this planet like I do and you’ve seen things that I haven’t seen, so I need the knowledge that you have just as much.
– James
James Howard Hill Jr. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Boston University. He teaches courses and conducts research in American religions and public humanities, with particular attention to Black study, religion and politics of US popular culture, political theory, Black political thought, modernity, ecology, coloniality, and religious conceptual methodologies. His work approaches American religions as a public and ethical question, examining how religious meanings are produced, governed, and contested through social, political, and economic realities that function as racial projects. Teaching the course Religion, Race, and Climate Change at BU inspired James to forge a discussion space rooted in community and antiauthoritarian education. Leaning into past mutual aid approaches, he plans to explore how education can be used to uplift and bring generations of people into a movement as partners.
With MISI, James began structuring a community-based learning space called the Public Study Collective focused on how New England ecological concerns connect to spirituality, freedom, and education. The goal is to encourage impactful conversations and embrace the idea that all perspectives and knowledge are valuable without the limitations that come with the formal hierarchy of a typical university course.