Ennis B. Edmonds came to Kenyon College in the fall of 2003. Formerly, he taught in Sociology and Pan African Studies and directed the Pan African Studies Program at Barnard College, Columbia University. His areas of expertise are African Diaspora Religions, Religion in America, and Sociology of Religion. His research has focused primarily on Rastafari, leading to the publication of Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers, Oxford University Press, 2003. He also published "Dread 'I' In-a-Babylon: Ideological Resistance and Cultural Revitalization," and "The Structure and Ethos of Rastafari" in Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, edited by Nathaniel S. Murrell, et al., Temple University Press, 1998. Current research interests include the conversion of Rastas to Evangelical Christianity, the Jamaican religious group called Revival Zion, and religion in Afro-Caribbean and African American popular culture and literature.

Areas of Expertise

African diaspora religions, religion in America, sociology of religion

Education

B.A., Jamaica Theological Seminary
M.A., Western Evangelical [now George Fox Theological] Seminary
Ph.D., Drew University

Selected Publications

Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers, Oxford University Press, 2003.

"Dread 'I' In-a-Babylon: Ideological Resistance and Cultural Revitalization," and "The Structure and Ethos of Rastafari," Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, edited by Nathaniel S. Murrell, et al., Temple University Press, 1998.