Publication Feature: Colored Women Sittin’ on High: Womanist Sermonic Practice in Literature and Music
Colored Women Sittin’ on High: Womanist Sermonic Practice in Literature and Music
From blue-note turmoil to grace-note power, Black women preachers stand tall. In Colored Women Sittin' on High, Melanie R. Hill 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.
Paperback Available April 29, 2025. To learn more, and pre-order this book, click here.
To attend Dr. Hill's book launch on May 2nd, please click here.
To attend a book signing at WORD bookstore Tuesday, April 29th at 7:00, please click here.
About Dr. Melanie R. Hill
Melanie R. Hill is the Mellon Assistant Professor of Global Racial Justice and Assistant Professor of American Literature at Rutgers University, Newark, and a classically trained gospel violinist.
From the early years of learning the craft of the violin to 35 years of musical experience, Dr. Hill is a Gospel Soul violinist who has performed at the White House on two occasions under the Obama administration, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the NAACP’s Annual Convention, the Apollo Theater in New York, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and other venues. She was featured on the syndicated talk show, Sister Circle Live on TV One and has performed on several occasions for Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple. She is a multi-time, first-place winner at the Apollo Theater in New York and has been featured as a performer for the National Council of Churches, Showtime at the Apollo, The Quincy Harris Show, Good Day Philadelphia, NBC 10, Philadelphia Style magazine, NY1, BET, and TV One. Recently, Dr. Hill’s violin work was featured on Busta Rhymes’s latest album, “Wrath of God.” In addition, she’s performed the National Anthem on her violin for the Los Angeles Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers. Dr. Hill has also performed for newly-elected Senator Reverend Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, Ms. Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, Mrs. Susan L. Taylor, and opened for John Legend. Additionally, Dr. Hill was a featured performer for Pope Francis’s Papal Mass during his historic visit to the United States.
In 2020, Dr. Hill was invited to perform and share her scholarship of James Baldwin in the Oprah Winfrey Theater at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. 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, the presiding Bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church.
In addition to her music, Dr. Hill is Assistant Professor of American Literature in the Department of English at Rutgers University, Newark. Dr. 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, a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a second Master’s degree in Literature from George Mason University, and a B.A. in English with a minor in Spanish from the University of Virginia.
As her research focuses on the intersection of African American literature, Music, and Black theology, Dr. Hill is a reviewer for the Yale Journal of Music and Religion. She has written articles on black feminism and the sermon as sonic art in James Baldwin’s "The Amen Corner", as well as Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald under the Religions Journal and Oxford University Press, respectively. Under contract with the University of North Carolina Press (UNC Press), her forthcoming manuscript entitled, "Colored Women Sittin’ on High: Womanist Sermonic Practice in Literature and Music" 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.
In April 2021, Dr. Hill was awarded the Louisville Institute First Book Grant for Scholars of Color for her forthcoming manuscript, "Colored Women Sittin' on High: Womanist Sermonic Practice in Literature and Music."
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.