Dr. Todne Thomas

Biography

Todne Thomas is a tenured socio-cultural anthropologist and Associate Professor in the Religious Studies department at Yale University. He holds a joint appointment at Yale Divinity School and Yale College, where he focuses on the anthropology of religion and race, kinship, and African American religions. His research involves collaboration with Afro-Caribbean and African American congregants, conducting ethnographic studies on the racial, spatial, and familial dynamics within black Christian communities. Thomas's teaching and scholarship explore the intersectional constructions of power and the critical forms of consciousness that emerge in practices relating to 'the sacred.' His forthcoming book, 'Hate Hallows: Re-framing Black Church Arson' (contracted with Duke University Press), examines the arson of predominantly black Seventh-Day Adventist churches in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2015, arguing that these incidents are interpretive phenomena understood through local frameworks of religion and race. Additionally, his previous work 'Kincraft: Making Black Evangelical Sociality' (Duke University Press, 2021) positions the black evangelical community at the center of their own religious narrative, emphasizing the importance of kincraft in community life. He is also the co-editor of 'New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties in the Abrahamic Religions' (2017) along with Asiya Malik and Rose Wellman, and has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles in leading academic journals.

Research Interests