Celucien Joseph PhD

Biography

Celucien L. Joseph is Professor of English and Endowed Chair in American Studies at Louisiana State University Shreveport (LSUS). His interdisciplinary work engages American culture, history, literature, and intellectual life through the critical frameworks of racial capitalism, empire, and the Black Atlantic world. His scholarship situates the United States within broader hemispheric and global contexts, highlighting the formative role of African American, Caribbean, and diasporic intellectual traditions in shaping American democracy, religious life, and cultural identity. He brings together African American studies, Caribbean intellectual history, Black internationalism, liberation theology, and American literary and religious traditions to examine how ideas of freedom, citizenship, modernity, and political imagination are constructed across national and transnational boundaries, with particular attention to Haitian and Caribbean intellectual traditions and their role in reshaping dominant narratives of U.S. history, racial formation, and democracy.

Joseph maintains an active and distinguished research agenda. He is the author of seven single-authored books and co-editor of seven scholarly volumes and has published more than fifty peer-reviewed articles, encyclopedia entries, and translations, in addition to delivering numerous invited lectures and conference presentations. His scholarship has received international recognition, including two books that earned Honorable Mention at the Pan-African International Book Awards and another that received the 2022 Political Award. His current research focuses on Haitian and Caribbean intellectual history, comparative theology, and global Black intellectual traditions, including studies of Anténor Firmin’s critique of Western race science, a comparative analysis of Christianity and Haitian Vodou, and the thought of James Baldwin on democracy, religion, race, and moral imagination in American life. His forthcoming monograph, For the Sake of Black People and the Common Good: A Biography of Jean Price-Mars (Vanderbilt University Press, 2026), offers an intellectual biography of Price-Mars as a visionary Haitian thinker whose work on race, gender, education, religion, culture, and Pan-Africanism reshaped understandings of Haiti, Black modernity, and the moral possibilities of democratic life.

Beyond his research and teaching, Joseph is actively engaged in public scholarship and curriculum development, extending his work beyond the academy into broader educational and community contexts. He is a scholar, educator, and public intellectual with extensive experience in higher education leadership, teaching, and institutional service, including roles as department chair and elementary school principal. He has also provided over a decade of nonprofit leadership through Hope for Today Outreach and has served in executive roles within the Haitian Studies Association, including Secretary and Vice President. Committed to interdisciplinary inquiry, student mentorship, and public humanities, his work bridges academic and public discourse while advancing community-engaged scholarship and reflects a deep commitment to student success through inclusive pedagogy, critical thinking, and mentorship that prepares students for academic achievement and engaged citizenship.

Degrees

Research Interests

Literature & Cultural Studies:

American and African American literature; postcolonial literature; literary theory and criticism; religion, literature, and cultural theory

Caribbean & Diaspora Studies:

Caribbean intellectual history; Black Atlantic and African diaspora studies; African American intellectual history; Black internationalism; Francophone and Anglophone Caribbean and diasporic literatures

Religion & Theology:

American religion and culture; African American religious traditions; Liberation theology; Haitian religious and intellectual thought

Rhetoric & Writing:

Rhetoric and writing studies; composition theory and pedagogy; public writing and the public humanities; intellectual history and scholarly communication

Selected Publications

Monographs

For the Sake of Black People and the Common Good: A Biography of Jean Price-Mars (Vanderbilt University Press, forthcoming 2026)

Aristide: A Political and Theological Introduction to His Life and Thought (Fortress Press, 2023)

Theologizing in Black: Africana Theological Anthropology and Ethics (Pickwick, 2020)

Revolutionary Change and Democratic Religion: Christianity, Vodou, and Secularism (Pickwick Publications, 2020)

Edited Volumes

Reconstructing the Social Sciences and Humanities: Anténor Firmin, Western Intellectual Tradition, and Black Atlantic Tradition (Routledge, 2021), edited with Paul Mocombe

Vodou and Christianity in Interreligious Dialogue (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2023), edited with Charlene Desir and Lewis A. Clormeus

Evangelicals, Catholics, and Vodouyizan in Haiti: The Challenges of Living Together (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024), edited with Lewis A. Clormeus