Darnise C. Martin

Darnise C. Martin is an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Marymount University and holds a doctorate in Cultural and Historical Studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Dr. Martin is the author of two books, including the 2005 volume, Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church and co-edited the volume Women In New and Africana Religions. Dr Martin has written multiple articles, blogs, and contributed to a growing number of academic volumes and documentaries. Dr. Martin is also an active scholar and media consultant. She has been featured on Tavis Smiley’s radio program, KJLH Radio in Los Angeles, as well as a number of podcasts and internet radio programs. She was the research consultant on the feature length documentaries Dark Girls and the follow up Light Girls for the Oprah Winfrey Network.

She continues to conduct research on the diversities of African-American religions particularly the metaphysical and esoteric, and the Gullah Geechee and hoodoo cultures in the South Carolina and Georgia low country regions of the U.S.

From my personal visionary, extraterrestrial dream experience I am exploring images, symbols and narratives that address alternative narratives, spaces and meanings which center Black bodies in other-worldly systems. I ponder the reality that there is place/space/dimension where Black bodies are not always in resistance to or hypervigilant against myriad threats of systemic racism. To the contrary, Blackness is at rest and ontologically whole.

This exploration is punctuated with select artists and their cultural productions because they provide lyrical and symbolic alternative realities full of texture, culture and spiritual commentary.