Ken Chitwood is a religion scholar, newswriter, and theologian expanding religious literacy in a world of diversity and difference.
His academic research focuses on the ethnographic study of religion in a global and digital age, with a specific interest in Islam and Muslim communities in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Latinx U.S.
He also has an active research agenda involving cosmopolitanization, religious minoritization, immigration, ethnographic theology, interreligious dialogue, religion news, urban religion, and philanthropy.
Ken is currently conducting research on the interesections of ethnography and journalism with the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Spiritual Exemplars Project and on Latinx Muslim philanthropy with the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative (MPI), an initiative of Lake Institute on Faith and Giving and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI. He is a Corresponding Associate Research Member with the University of Waikato's Islamic Studies Group. From 2020-2022, he was the Fritz Thyssen Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures & Societies at Freie Universität Berlin.
His first monograph, The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean (2021) won the Religion News Association’s Best Nonfiction Book Award and his second book, AmeRícan Muslims: The Everyday Lives of Puerto Rican Converts to Islam, is under contract with the University of Texas Press. Ken is also working on an edited collection on Muslim philanthropy in the Caribbean as well as books on religion in Berlin, storytelling, and global Islam.
Formerly, he was a lecturer in Islamic studies at Otto Friedrich Universität Bamberg, an adjunct instructor in theology with Concordia College New York’s Global Initiative program, Program Coordinator at the University of Florida’s Center for Humanities and the Public Sphere, Director of the LINC Institute in Houston, Texas, and adjunct professor at Laidlaw College in New Zealand. Ken has served as a guest lecturer at Concordia Seminary St. Louis and Concordia Lutheran Seminary in Edmonton, Canada. He graduated with his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 2019 where he worked with the Department of Religion and the Center for Global Islamic Studies. He also collaborated with the Digital Humanities Working Group at the University of Florida, helped lead and participated in THATCamp events across the U.S., and is a member of the Islamicate Digital Humanities Network (IDHN).
Ken's teaching experience includes:
Cultural Anthropology, Concordia St. Louis - Spring/Summer 2019 + Fall/Winter 2022/23
Ethnographic and Journalistic Approaches to the “Middle East,” Freie Universität Berlin - Summer 2022.
Digital Ethnography, Freie Universität Berlin - Summer 2021
Theorizing Global Islam, Freie Universität Berlin - Winter 2020/21
Islam in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Latinx U.S., Otto Friedrich Universität Bamberg - Summer 2020
Introduction to Christianity, Concordia College New York - Fall 2019
Global Christianity, Concordia College New York - Spring 2019
Introduction to Islam (Online), University of Florida - Spring 2018
American Religious History, University of Florida - Spring 2018
Islam, Christianity, and Religious Diversity, Concordia Lutheran Seminary Edmonton, Alberta - Winter 2018
Christian-Muslim Relations, Concordia College New York - Fall 2017
Islam in the Americas, University of Florida - Spring 2017
Religion & the News, University of Florida (with the College of Journalism & Communications) - Spring 2016
Religion, Medicine, & Healing, Teaching Assistant, University of Florida - Summer 2017
Religion & Science, Teaching Assistant, University of Florida - Spring 2015
Introduction to World Religions, LINC Institute, Houston, TX - Fall 2011
History of Christian Hermeneutics, Laidlaw College, Palmerston North, New Zealand - Spring 2008
Biblical Interpretation for Ministry, Laidlaw College, Palmerston North, New Zealand - Fall 2008
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