Hicks awarded a sabbatical grant to investigate culinary expressions in African American religious traditions

Derek S. Hicks, associate professor of religion and culture, was a recipient of Louisville Institute’s 2018 Sabbatical Grant for Researchers. The grant provides funding to assist with theological studies that address concerns of Christian life and faith, pastoral leadership, and religious institutions. The award provided Hicks funding to assist his research and writing projects on African American Christian traditions while he was on sabbatical in 2018.

Hicks’ project, “Feeding Flesh and Spirit: Religion, Food, and Race in Black American Life,” looked at the multitude of diverse culinary expressions in the African American religious tradition and examined their views and uses of food. He witnessed that food, in similar way as religion, functions as a method of preserving cultural meaning and retaining a level of dignity among those who are in danger of losing it. With similar expressions, Hicks has found food and religion in the African American tradition are vital to the healing processes that communities undergo.

Noting that this project spanned various assumptions, Hicks found stories and narratives the most useful tools of his research.

The time Hicks spent on this research sabbatical will be of tremendous benefit to the courses he teaches on the intersections of food and faith in the African American experience, such as this semester’s Culinary Culture in Black Religious Traditions. In this course, Hicks shares a bit of his own story by preparing his family’s gumbo for the class. The Winston-Salem Journal featured Hick’s gumbo in 2012.