In 2022,  the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary was awarded a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for a program bringing together scholars, faith leaders, activists, and artists of color to explore religion and racial justice through the medium of film. With movies ranging from movie theater blockbusters to arthouse indies, this cohort uses art as a public pedagogical tool for social change.

Series Authors

Samah Choudhury is a postdoctoral researcher and instructor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago where she teaches courses on race, religion, and popular culture. She is at work on her first book, Standup Citizen: American Muslim Humor and the Politics of Secularity, which examines how Muslims creatives have articulated themselves through the medium of standup comedy, and the ways that Islam gains recognition or becomes obscured under the specter and material demands of multicultural secularism.

Mihee Kim-Kort earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Indiana University. Her research interests include Asian American cultural production, American Christianities, race, gender, and citizenship.

Amey Victoria Adkins-Jones is Assistant Professor of Theology and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College. Her research interests include mariology, Black feminist and Womanist thought, theological anthropology, iconography and visual theory, and human trafficking. She is the author of Immaculate Misconceptions: A Black Mariology (Oxford, 2025).