PhD Candidate, African American Studies Graduate Certificate Student Chera Jo Watts is a mother, writer, gardener, yoga practitioner, and scholar-artist striving towards what Darlene Clark Hine labels as a “Black Studies Mindset,” which advocates for intersectionality, nonlinear thinking, diasporic perspectives, comparative analyses, resistance to oppression, and solidarity. A proud first-generation student from a poverty-class background in rural Georgia, her degrees include a Bachelor of Science in Psychology (2010), Master of Arts in Religion, and Graduate Certificate in African American Studies (2022) from The University of Georgia. As of April 2024, she is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in the Religion department, where she continues her work with Dr. Carolyn Jones Medine. Her dissertation, “Practicing to Transgress: Alice Walker’s Revolutionary Artistry through a Black Buddhist Lens,” is the first book-length manuscript to explore Walker’s Buddhist practices and Womanist thought using archival materials, journals, essays, speeches, and fiction, along with acknowledging her humanitarian activism. Further, she continues her involvement in the Institute for African American Studies, where she served for five academic years as the Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant (August 2019 – May 2024). As an interdisciplinary humanities scholar, her broad research interests include African American women’s religion and literature, focusing primarily on Womanism; American Buddhist Studies (with an emphasis on learning from Black Buddhists); and bridging the gap between the Academy and the everyday (moving from theory into tangible practice) through teaching, writing, workshops, and interpersonal interactions. Guided by her life experiences, she’s interested in the intersections of race, religion, class, socio-economic status, and gender as they relate to higher education access and attainment, and she asserts that we have much to learn from ancestors while operating among what bell hooks labels imperialist white supremacist capitalist cishetero-patriarchy. These teachings facilitate personal and communal healing as we continuously dismantle these systems of domination in the tangible ways that we can from the spaces that we occupy. Along with considerable professional academic advising experience in the Franklin Residential College and Division of Biological Sciences, her teaching experience at UGA includes RELI/AFAM 2005, “Introduction to African American Religious Thought,” (Spring 2023). Watts currently serves as the part-time Executive Associate for Digital Services for the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies and spends time living between Athens, Georgia, and Wuppertal, Germany, while writing her dissertation. Among other honors, she is the recipient of the Graduate School Dean’s Award (2023), Lee Roy B. Giles Award (2024), and the Jane Mulkey and Rufus Green Graduate Fellowship in Arts and Humanities (2024 - 2025). Education Education: MA in Religion, Graduate Certificate in African American Studies (2022), University of Georgia, Athens, GA. BS in Psychology, Cum Laude (2010), University of Georgia, Athens, GA. Research Research Interests: Ongoing: African American Womanist Thought & Practice (focusing on Alice Walker); Black Buddhists & Practice in America; Black Feminism; Womanism; Love as Active Teaching Practice (in the spirit of bell hooks); African American Female Blended Spirituality; Comparative & Blended Religions; Decolonizing Teaching Strategies, Learning Practices, & Modes of Being in the World In Progress (see peer-reviewed book chapters on CV): "Refusing Summation, Inviting Contemplation: A Collaborative Approach to Understanding the Lives, Literature, and Lessons of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin," co-authored with Chanara Andrews, concerning archival research citing letters written between Baldwin and Morrison during the 1970s alongside their fictional writing, public appearances, and other public historical documents. Grants: University of Georgia, Graduate School Summer Research Grant, $1500, May 2024. University of Georgia, Graduate Student Domestic Travel Grant, $550, June 2023. Franklin College Curriculum Diversity Enhancement Grant, $100, Acknowledgement Award, University of Georgia Franklin College Dean’s Office, January 2023. Student Responses to But Some of US are BRAVE, $250, Grant Recipient, University of Georgia Institute for Women’s Studies, Spring 2023. University of Georgia Office of Sustainability Grant Sponsor, Franklin Residential College Community Garden Pilot Program, $3000, Spring 2021. Selected Publications Selected Publications: Watts, Chera Jo, “An Ongoing Womanist Buddhist Project: Reading Between the Times,” Literature, Special Edition: “Spirituality, Identity, and Resistance in African American Literature,” edited by Carolyn Jones Medine, 2022. Link. Medine, Carolyn J. and Watts, Chera Jo, “Alice Walker,” Oxford Bibliographies in “African American Studies,” New York: Oxford University Press, 2024. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780190280024-0137. Watts, Chera Jo, Elliptical Practice: Womanist Buddhist Thought in Selected Works by Alice Walker, University of Georgia, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2022. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/elliptical-practice-analyzing-womanist-buddhist/docview/2681444848/se-2.
