Left of Black | Author Ashon Crawley on Gender Performance & Praise Breaks in Black Church & His Art

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Ashon Crawley is the textbook definition of a polymath––from the Greek: "having learned much." When Left of Black host Dr. Mark Anthony Neal first met Crawley in 2013, he was a doctoral literature student at Duke having already obtained his masters in Theological Studies at Emory. Since then, Crawley has established himself as a multidisciplinary artist. He has created compelling art pieces through the use of paint with choreography while experiencing "praise breaks," an embodied religious experience found largely in Black Pentecostal church; he made a sound and visual installation on display in 2023 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. entitled "HOMEGOING," which served as "a sonic memorial that honors Black church musicians, choir directors and singers that were impacted by the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 90s."

Crawley is also the author of two important books:
(1.) "Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility," (Fordham University Press) which engages a wide range of critical paradigms from Black Studies, queer theory, and Sound Studies to Theology (Winner of the 2019 Judy Tsou Critical Race Studies Award); and
(2.) "The Lonely Letters" (Duke University Press), an epistolary exploration of the interrelation of blackness, mysticism, quantum mechanics and love (Winner of the 2020 Believer Book Award for Nonfiction and the Winner of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction)

Ashon Crawley was also named the 2024-2025 Nannerl Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professor, which invites prominent faculty to serve as visiting professors at both UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University for one year, during which they deliver a lecture series and engage students and faculty around areas of shared interest to both institutions.

Crawley continues to focus on performance theory as a way to tackle questions of race, gender performativity, and religious practices particularly of Black Pentecostal church in the South. He currently works as Professor of Religious Studies and African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia.

Learn more about Ashon Crawley here:

Get his books here:
"Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility,"

"The Lonely Letters,"

"Left of Black," Duke University's intrepid web series on Black Studies and the Black Arts, begins its milestone fifteenth season! "Left of Black" is the 2024 Gold Davey Award-winning and 2023 Webby Award-nominated series featuring interviews with Black Studies scholars, along with musicians and artists, created and hosted by the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies, Dr. Mark Anthony Neal.

Directed, produced & edited by Eric Barstow, M.F.A.
Camera and gaffing by Jakiah Glass and Miles Tiller