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Andrea Carol Abrams

Affiliated Institutions

Centre College

Andrea C. Abrams is a professor of anthropology, African American studies and gender studies at Centre College. Her research focuses on racial and gender issues in the South. Her book, God and Blackness: Race, Gender and Identity in a Middle Class Afrocentric Church will be published March 2014 by New York University Press. Abrams has a B.A. in sociology and anthropology from Agnes Scott College. She earned a M.A. in anthropology, a graduate certificate in women's studies, and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Emory University.

Areas of Research

race, gender, African American

Publications

God and Blackness: Race, Gender and Identity in a Middle Class Afrocentric (March 2014 NYU Press)

Projects

Atlanta, GA, United States

God and Blackness: Race, Gender and Identity in a Middle Class Afrocentric Church

Drawing on nearly two years of participant observation and in depth interviews, the book examines how a middle class church in Atlanta has employed Afrocentrism and Black theology as a means of negotiating the unreconciled natures of thoughts and ideals that are part of being both black and American. Although Afrocentrism operates as the focal point of this discussion, the book examines questions of political identity, religious expression and gender dynamics through the lens of a unique black church.

Ghana

Comparative Blackness in Ghana and African America

My previous research focused on the ways in which African Americans employ their constructions of African ethnicity, gender politics and religious culture in search of a more authentic sense of blackness. This new project explores the ways in which Ghanaians navigate the same dynamics of identity; and probes the similarities and difference to African America. I intend to conduct fieldwork in Ghana and to produce a second ethnography.