Dr. Turner joined the University of Iowa faculty in 2001 and holds appointments in Department of Religious Studies, African American Studies Program, and International Programs.
His research program focuses on twentieth-century and contemporary African-American religious history and African diaspora religions in the Black Atlantic world. He is especially interested in the following areas: Islam in the United States; religion and music in New Orleans, before and after Hurricane Katrina; Vodou in the United States and Haiti; interactions between African-American religion and popular music — jazz, soul, and hip hop; black nationalism and religion; African-American religion and human rights; ethnography; urban religious experience; and globalization and transnationalism.
Dr. Turner is currently working on a book project on African-American religion and music in the 1960s. He is a member of American Academy of Religion, American Anthropological Association, Association for Africanist Anthropology, and is on the board of directors of KOSANBA, an international scholarly association for the study of Haitian Vodou.
Research interests
- African-American religious history
- African diaspora religions in the Black Atlantic world
Selected publications
- Soundtrack to a Movement, African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism (NYU Press, 2021)
- Jazz Religion, the Second Line, and Black New Orleans After Hurrican Katrina (Indiana University Press, 2016)
- “Malcolm X and youth culture.” Book chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X. Edited by Robert E. Terrill. (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
- Jazz Religion, the Second Line, and Black New Orleans (Indiana University Press, 2009)
- “Constructing Masculinity: Interactions between Islam and African-American Youth since C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America.” Book chapter in Black Routes to Islam. Edited by Manning Marable and Hishaam D. Aidi. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
- “Islam and African Americans.” Book chapter in Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience: Origins. Edited by Howard Dodson and Colin Palmer. The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Michigan State University Press, 2008)
- Islam in the African-American Experience Second Edition (Indiana University Press, 2003)