Interview With Vincent Lloyd

In this interview with Dr. Vincent Lloyd, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies and Director of the Center for Political Theology at Villanova University, SPECTRA editors continue their series of conversations with key scholars working on interdisciplinary problems. Lloyd’s work lies at the intersection of Political Theology and Black Studies; these perspectives inform a coherent strand of thinking that is consistently concerned with questions of justice, race, and faith. While beginning to think about the intersection of Political Theology and Black Studies, the conversation picks up on Lloyd’s 2022 monograph, Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination, which centers dignity in the struggle for justice in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement through a rethinking of Black-led social justice movements and through engagement with major themes of Black love, Black rage, and Black magic. Ultimately, Lloyd re-announces the dialectics of Black dignity as the beating heart of the struggle for dignity for all, describes his motivations for pursuing this work, and contextualizes the book alongside his prior research. We then discuss recent pedagogical tensions, the state of Black Studies, and the promise of interdisciplinarity exhibited in the Political Theology Network.