Winters, Joseph: - Joseph Winters is Associate Professor at Duke University in Religious Studies and African and African American Studies. He holds secondary appointments in English and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. His interests lie at the intersection of Black religious thought, Black studies, and critical theory. His research examines the ways Black literature and aesthetics develop alternative configurations of the sacred, piety, (Black) spirit, and secularity in response to the religious underpinnings of anti-Black violence and coloniality. His first book, Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress, was published by Duke University Press in 2016. He is currently finishing a second manuscript, titled The Disturbing Profane: Hip Hop, Blackness, and the Sacred.