Berkley Center

Dr. Soyica Diggs Colbert is Idol Family Professor and professor of African American studies and performing arts at Georgetown University. She is the author of The African American Theatrical Body: Reception, Performance and the Stage (2011) and Black Movements: Performance and Cultural Politics (2017).

Terrence L. Johnson is a professor of African American religious studies at Harvard Divinity School. He was a senior fellow at the Berkley Center from February to September 2022, after having previously served as a senior research fellow from April 2019 to January 2022. From 2015 to 2022 he was an associate professor of religion and politics at Georgetown University's Department of Government, as well as an affiliate member of the Department of African American Studies and member of the executive committee of the Center for Jewish Civilization. Johnson’s research interests include African American political thought, ethics, American religions, and the role of religion in public life. He is the author of Blacks and Jews in America: An Invitation to Dialogue (2022, with Jacques Berlinerblau); We Testify with Our Lives: How Religion Transformed Radical Thought from Black Power to Black Lives Matter (2021); and Tragic Soul-Life: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Moral Crisis Facing American Democracy (2012). He also serves as co-editor of the Duke University Press Series Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People. Johnson holds a B.A. from Morehouse College, an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Brown University.

Drew Lichtenberg is literary manager and resident dramaturg at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC. His research interests include Erwin Piscator and the origins of epic theater, German romanticism and modernism, and Shakespeare and early modern performance. 

Josiah Ulysses Young III is a professor of systematic theology at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is the author of James Baldwin's Understanding of God: Overwhelming Desire and Joy (2014) and Dogged Strength within the Veil: Africana Spirituality and the Mysterious Love of God (2003).