Melanie R. Hill

Melanie R. Hill, Ph.D. is Mellon Assistant Professor of Global Racial Justice and Assistant Professor of American Literature with specializations in African American Literature, Black Music Performance, and Womanist Literature/Thought/Theology in the Department of English at Rutgers University, Newark. Hill received her Ph.D. in English Literature with two graduate certificates in Africana Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Hill has been a reviewer for the Yale Journal of Music and Religion and published articles on the art of the sermon in Black literature, Black feminism/womanism and the art of the sermon in African American literature as well as on the works of blues and jazz vocalists Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald under the James Baldwin Review, Religions Journal, and Oxford University Press, respectively. In addition, Dr. Hill has held positions as Associate Research Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion and Literature at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music and Divinity School, respectively. Her new manuscript entitled, “Colored Women Sittin’ on High: Womanist Sermonic Practice in Literature and Music” (UNC Press) focuses on the ways in which Black women preachers in African American literature, music, and in the space of the pulpit counter social injustices through sermon and song. Dr. Hill’s new book will be released worldwide April 29, 2025.

Recently, Dr. Hill performed at Carnegie Hall in New York (2025) and was also invited as the
keynote speaker and performing solo violinist in Paris, France, for the James Baldwin Centennial
Celebration, commemorating 100 years of Baldwin’s legacy (September 2024). She is also a keynote
interviewee in the forthcoming American Girl® documentary. Dr. Hill’s research and pedagogical work
have also been featured in Princeton University’s Mellon Research Forum and the Teagle Foundation,
respectively.

In addition to her scholarship, Dr. Hill is a classically-trained Gospel Soul Violinist who has performed at the White House on two occasions under the Obama administration, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Apollo Theater, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and for Pope Francis’s Papal Mass during his historic visit to the United States. Hill has also been featured on Showtime at the Apollo, Good Day Philadelphia, Philadelphia Style Magazine, NY1, BET, TV One, and has performed for Alice Walker, Senator Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, Ms. Sabrina Fulton, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, Mrs. Susan L. Taylor, and opened for John Legend and Jonathan McReynolds. In collaboration with the Mourning into Unity project, Dr. Hill performed at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., honoring lives lost due to the global pandemic. In honor of precious lives lost during the pandemic, Dr.
Hill opened for the National Council of Churches before the sermon of Bishop Michael B. Curry, presiding Bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church.

Dr. Hill is grateful for God’s blessings and remains focused on sharing inspiration through her violin and spreading scholarship along the intersections of literature, music, and womanist theology.

Publications:

• Singing in the Midnight Hour: An Encounter with the Queen of Soul in The Village Voice

Media Appearances/Speaking Engagements:

• Mellon Research Forum for the Urban Environment at Princeton University

• How I Teach These Texts: Morrison and Music Pedagogical Workshop with the Teagle Foundation

• Hurston/Wright Fellow in Washington, DC

Previous Organizations: 

• Yale University

Accomplishments:

• Featured scholar and musician for the Gathering of the Elders Civil Rights conference featuring Ruby Sales

• Featured panelist for the Performing Justice panel on Martin L. King, Jr. and music for the American Academy of Religion conference

Upcoming Projects:

• Black Women Speakers of Prominence: An Evening of Music and Social Justice

• Black Women Speakers of Prominence featuring Mrs. Lucy Anne Hurston, niece of Zora Neale Hurston

As my transdisciplinary research examines the intersections of African American literature, music, and spirituality, my work focuses specifically on the ways in which Black women preachers as cultural figures utilize the sermon as a mode of resistance in literary, musicological, and theological discourses.

From blue-note turmoil to grace-note power, Black women preachers stand tall. In Colored Women Sittin' on High, Melanie R. Hill, Ph.D. offers a new perspective on the art of the sermon in African American literature, music, and theology. Drawing on the womanist cadence of Alice Walker in literature and the rhythmical flow of named womanist theologians, Hill makes interventions at the intersections of African American literary criticism, music, and religious studies. Pushing against the patriarchal dominance that often exists in religious spaces, Hill argues that Black women's religious practice creates a 'sermonic space' that thrives inside and outside the church, allowing for a critique of sexism and anti-Black racism. She examines literature by writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin, music by Aretha Franklin and Ms. Lauryn Hill, and sermons by theologians Ruby Sales and Vashti M. McKenzie, and she takes readers into a sermonic artwork of artists, preachers, and freedom movement activists who are, as Hill contends, the greatest 'virtuosic alchemists' of our time.

Book launch on May 2nd: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/colored-women-sittin-on-high-book-launch-with-dr-melanie-r-hill-tickets-1271124671109

Book signing at WORD bookstore Tuesday, April 29^th at 7:00: https://withfriends.co/event/23033345/dr_melanie_r_hill