Prof. Carol B. Duncan
Prof. Carol B. Duncan, Professor, Department of Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
1) What is your discipline of study and what are the specific fields and sub-fields to which you contribute?
I am a sociologist by training. I contribute as a researcher and professor to the fields of sociology of religion and cultural studies. I also work in the areas of religion and popular culture, gender studies and migration, diaspora communities, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
2) How did you come to study these specific domains?
As an undergraduate student I was interested in understanding social and political power dynamics which shaped the world in which I lived and the communities with which I interacted. This interest has stayed with me over the last forty years. The sub-disciplines in which I work address different facets of this underlying interest.
3) Tell us something about your process of study, formal and informal education, and the nature of your degrees and training. When, where, and how did you become qualified to do what you do?
I was a voracious reader as a child. Libraries were places of comfort and exploration for me. I still remember early library visits and how excited I was to read and learn about different topics as well as devouring stories. These passions and my twin interests in factual information as well as storyworlds have never left me. I was born in England but began my early formal education in the Caribbean, in Antigua, in the 1970s before migrating to Canada. Vitally important was the rich oral tradition of the Caribbean to which I was introduced as a child.
I hold a BA from the University of Toronto and an MA and PhD from York University. All of my degrees are in the discipline of sociology. I also hold a graduate certificate in Latin American and Caribbean Studies completed during the course of my graduate studies at York University. I was an undergraduate student in the 1980s and a graduate student in the 1990s. This was a time during which there were major social and political changes nationally and internationally. For instance the fall of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the apartheid system in South Africa took place during this time period. As a student of sociology, a discipline concerned with social change in the modern world, my studies seemed especially relevant to explore the news headlines and broad social trends of the day.
4) What were the greatest obstacles that you had to overcome to achieve the success that you now experience? What challenges have you experienced and how have you overcome them? What goals do you have left to accomplish?
The greatest obstacle which I faced was having a research focus in an area which was emergent when I began my career nearly 30 years ago. By using the term “emergent,” I am referring to religious studies of the African Diaspora not having as strong an institutional presence as it does in today’s academy. While scholarship in this area was produced it was not as clearly defined as an academic subfield within universities when I began my career in Canadian academy nearly three decades ago. Efforts to create these spaces have been worth it as they provide not only appropriate professional spaces such as conferences, symposia, and themed opportunities for publication, but they also contribute to the larger body of research. In this way, the disciplines of religious studies and sociology, for instance, are also expanded to include a greater variety of historical and contemporary experiences.
My future goals include the completion of my current research and creative projects including a short story collection and novel.
5) Did you have any role models or mentors either in your domains of work, research, and creation or outside of them? Who were they and how were they instrumental in shaping you as a person and as a professional?
Anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was, and continues to be, a role model for me. I drew inspiration from Hurston’s work on folklore, religion, and culture of southern African American as well as Caribbean traditions. Her work was pathbreaking in its use of vernacular culture which included the way that folks spoke as they expressed themselves in written publications. Hurston’s prolific output included ethnographic research and scholarly writing as well as her creative output as a novelist, playwright, and short story writer.
I was also inspired by sociologist W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963). I was impressed by DuBois’ clarity of expression, his courage and his steadfast commitment to working for social justice. Of particular interest to me as a graduate student was DuBois’ concept of “double consciousness” which I have revisited over the years.
I also found the writing of authors such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Paule Marshall particularly important.
I express gratitude for my teachers and mentors starting with my maternal grandmother and including teachers at different levels of my educational experience. I remember especially my elementary school teachers who took the time to encourage and nurture my interests in research and writing at an early age. I always liked working on “projects” and then presenting them to the class. Public speaking was an early passion. Little did I know then of their importance in shaping my career path.
6) What does your process of research look like? Where and what are your archives and what artworks, artifacts, documents, or specimens do you study or examine?
My research process includes periods of research, observation, questioning, and writing. An idea for a project could be sparked by an observation of social trends, for instance, or through reading scholarly or popular literature and querying the absence of certain criteria or focal points. In that way, the research process emerges organically from engagement with the published research of others and in some instances a revisiting of my own research projects and questions. For some research, I consult historical archives in research collections which are either digitized or paper records. For other research projects such as essays on movies, the archival sources are the movies, themselves, which may be available through streaming or other digitized sources. Digital access has changed the ways in which research is conducted. Sources which previously could only be accessed through physically visiting a research collection sometimes at great distance including other countries can now be accessed digitally. Not all archives are available in this fashion however and travel is still necessary.
7) What are your fundamental research questions and what defines your methodology or approach? How do you determine how you engage with your objects, individuals or communities of study?
My fundamental research questions are as follows: How was the modern world created and what are the legacies of those economic, technological, political, and cultural processes which shaped the interactions between different areas of the world? In what ways were religious and cultural traditions shaped by these processes and vice versa and what are the legacies in today’s world?
8) What are you working on now and when and how will it be shared?
As a creative writer, I am working on the final edits on a short story called “Galina,” which will be published in the literary magazine Tales and Features, Issue 7.4, later this fall in November 2024.
My newest academic research focuses on the significance and legacy of visual and material culture in former British colonies. This is a new project and I expect to publish and present at conferences and in relevant journals in the future.
I am also working on a co-authored introductory text on black religion and popular culture. It will be published by Routledge.
As a creative writer, I am working on several short stories and a novel. I write speculative fiction which is both historical and fantastic. The stories are set in an imagined Caribbean.
9) What are you proudest of in your career?
I am proudest of conducting research which adds to the literature on religion and culture of the African Diaspora and the Caribbean. Major publications include my book This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto (2008), the first major study of a Caribbean migrant religion in Canada. I was a co-author of Black Church Studies: An Introduction (2007). I co-edited two books: Womanist and Feminist Perspectives on Tyler Perry’s Productions (2014) and Black Church Studies Reader (2016).
I have also published numerous chapters and essays an example of which is “Jamaican Revival Zion and Spiritual Baptists” in the Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions (2024).
I am also proud of my work as an educator in working with students and creating innovative courses over the years including my department’s first courses on Religion and Culture of the African Diaspora (first taught in 1999) and Religion and Popular Culture (first taught in 2000).
10) What are you proudest of in your life?
I am proudest of being a bridge maker of sorts in making links between academic, arts, and wider communities. In doing so, I have played a part in bringing people from different walks of life together for conversations and cultural learning and exchange. Higher education can serve the purpose of helping individuals and communities learn more about the world in which they live and provide tools for critical analysis in addressing pressing concerns. This is an ongoing pursuit in my work as a scholar, professor, creative writer and contributor to public intellectual events such as panels and lectures, both as an organizer and presenter. I have also participated in coordinating events which bring artists to universities.
11) What academic book should be essential reading?
In Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1986), anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz presents a detailed historical analysis of the production and consumption of sugar, and its influence in shaping modern world economies.
12) What TV show or film should be essential viewing?
Daughters of the Dust (1991), a film by Julie Dash is essential viewing. Dash’s lyrical film is visually beautiful in its depiction of a Gullah family’s migration from their island home to the mainland in the year 1902. The film centres African Diasporic spiritualities, visual and material culture, and social issues in its narrative.
13) How do you relax and take care of yourself?
I like to garden, cook, read, and walk. I enjoy experiencing and participating in a variety of artistic forms. I especially enjoy photography. The cover of my book This Spot of Ground (2008) features one of my photographs.
14) What’s next?
I will continue to teach, write, and conduct research in my role as Professor of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University. I will also continue with my creative endeavours as well. Like anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and sociologist Orlando Patterson, my research and creative output are thematically linked.
Carol B. Duncan is a writer, researcher, and tenured professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University. She holds a BA from the University of Toronto in sociology, a graduate diploma in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and MA and PhD degrees in sociology from York University. A British-born Caribbean Canadian woman of Antiguan and Guyanese heritage, Professor Duncan is a chronicler of cultural and religious life in the African Diaspora. Her research focuses on Black Church Studies in Canada, Caribbean religions in transnational and diasporic contexts, religion and popular culture, and women’s and gender studies. She held a fellowship in the Women’s Studies in Religion Program and served as a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School. She served as an academic consultant and appeared in the award-winning documentary Seeking Salvation: A History of the Black Church in Canada (2004). She won the Waterloo Region Arts Award for literature (2002). In addition to numerous articles and chapters, Professor Duncan is the author of This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008), co-author of Black Church Studies: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2007), and contributing editor to The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions (University of Illinois Press, 2013). She is co-editor of Womanist and Black Feminist Responses to Tyler Perry’s Productions (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014) and The Black Church Studies Reader (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Her latest book project is the co-authored Black Religion and Popular Culture: An Introduction (under contract with Routledge). Her teaching awards include the province-wide OCUFA (2007) and the Canadian national 3M Teaching Fellowship (2014). Professor Duncan’s short stories are published in Augur Magazine, Heartlines Spec, PREE Caribbean Writing and FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction. Her short story “Peeny-Wally” was nominated for The Journey Prize, appears in the anthology African Ghost Short Stories (Flame Tree/Simon & Schuster, 2024), and received an honourable mention in The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (and Peoetry) Anthology, Volume II (2022).
Learn More…
Mahogany Birds,” Augur Magazine, Issue 6.2, December, 2023.