Biography

Dr. Dennis-Meade is a scholar of Africana Religions and Caribbean Studies. She is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Black Studies at Northwestern University. Her work centers the intersection of political and cultural histories that inform processes of meaning-making within religious communities in the English-speaking Caribbean. Her research areas include the study of the modern African diaspora, religious cultures and politics in the Caribbean, ethnographic methods, and the digital humanities. Her research areas include the study of the modern African diaspora, religious cultures and politics in the Caribbean, ethnographic methods, and the digital humanities. Dr. Dennis-Meade’s current book manuscript explores the role of religion in the history of social change in Jamaica from the late 19th century to the present. The project centers the voices and experiences of her interlocutors living within an inner-city community in Kingston, Jamaica. Through ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, her study analyzes the salience of religion in shaping national politics and everyday life. Her findings prompt scholars in the fields of Religious Studies and Black Studies to attend to the impact of antiblackness, globalization, colonialism, and violence on African diasporic religious communities and practices.

Crossroads Community Stories Fellows Project

Crossing the Kalunga Line: A Cinematic Biography of a Revival Scientist

Crossing the Kalunga Line documents the contemporary textures, rhythms, voices, concerns, and lived realities of everyday Jamaican Revival Zion practitioners for whom Revivalism is the foundation of their meaning-making. The project is a multimedia exploration of the intimate relationships and rituals of Jamaican Revival Zion practitioners as they navigate themes of grief and mourning, life at the crossroads of transitions, and the innovative ways that Black religious practitioners, who inhabit marginalized positions, mobilize Africana spiritual resources to sustain life in the face of social, political, and economic hardship. The project entails a film and digital exhibition drawn from Dr. Brown’s and Dr. Dennis-Meade’s ethnographic research in Jamaica. The project foremost venerates the memory of Bishop Marrah—a noteworthy Revival Scientist whose passing inaugurated the creation of this film—by foregrounding the
testimonies of those whose lives he touched deeply through his healing and protective spiritual technologies and pastoral work. The film and exhibition offer a contemporary look at an indigenous tradition that continues to thrive in urban Jamaica as a community-sustaining practice despite societal stigma due to its deep reliance on African and African-heritage epistemologies and practice. In so doing, the project is a celebration of Revivalism and will also function as an educational tool to help demystify and deepen public understanding of this often misunderstood and culturally maligned tradition.