Rate My Professor Brandy Daniels

Brandy Daniels is an Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Portland, a position she has held since 2020. She also serves as Co-Director of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies program. Prior to this appointment, Daniels completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. in Religion with a focus on Theological Studies and a certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from Vanderbilt University; an M.A. in Humanities with a certificate in African and African American Studies and an M.Div. from Duke University; and a B.A. from Azusa Pacific University. As an ordained minister with the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church), her research and teaching delve into the intersections of constructive and political theologies, social ethics, feminist and queer theories, particularly addressing questions of identity, community, and difference. Daniels has published on diverse topics including Bonhoeffer and Foucault on racial identity, poststructuralism and liberation theology, Eastern Orthodox apophatic theology, and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. Her current book project, How (Not?) to be Christian? Identity, Formation, and Difference, examines these themes through the lens of contemporary feminist theologies.

Selected publications include “Abolition Theology? Or the Abolition of Theology? Towards a Negative Theology of Practice” in Religions (2019), “Queer Theory” in Religion: Embodied Religion, edited by Kent Brintnall (Macmillan Reference, 2016), contributions to Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies (2017), “Ethics Beyond Biopower: Bonhoeffer, Foucault, and the Problem of Race” (2013), and “Excess and enactment of queer time: futurity, failure and formation in feminist theologies” (2018). Daniels teaches courses such as Introduction to Theology, Christianity, Gender, and Sexuality, and Queer Theologies. She holds significant leadership roles as co-chair of the Queer Studies in Religion unit of the American Academy of Religion, co-chair of the LGBTQ and Queer Studies Interest Group and the Women’s Caucus of the Society of Christian Ethics, and member of the executive committee of the Political Theology Network. Additionally, she has been awarded Butine Faculty Development Fund grants in spring and fall 2024 for professional development.