Kuumba Series

A native of Gary, Indiana, Teresa Reed’s professional life has been shaped both by her Pentecostal upbringing and her love for music. She received her Ph.D. in Music Theory, Music History & Literature, and African American Studies from Indiana University. Since 1996, Dr. Reed has been on faculty at The University of Tulsa where she served nine years as the Director of African American Studies and now serves as Director of the School of Music. As a professor at Phillips Theological Seminary, she has taught courses that explore links between religion and black popular music and culture.

Dr. Reed has lectured widely around the United States and in the Caribbean on various aspects of African-American music and religion, and her publications appear in The Journal of Religious Thought, Black Women and Music: More than the Blues (University of Illinois Press, 2007), the British Journal For Eighteenth-Century Studies, Popular Music and Society, and African American National Biography. Her book, The Holy Profane: Religion in Black Popular Music (University Press of Kentucky, 2003) was a 2004 winner of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections’ Excellence Award and has received favorable reviews and citations in several national publications, including Publisher’s Weekly, Choice, and Vibe Magazine.

Dr. Reed’s church background and scholarly insight make her uniquely qualified to comment on contemporary issues involving religion and black popular culture. She has appeared in the BET series, Exalted (feature on Carlton Pearson), in National Public Radio’s This American Life (“Heretic”) on ABC News’s 20/20 (July 2007, “Hell”), has been quoted in the Christian Science Monitor and has been a consultant for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

In addition to her travels, lectures, and collegiate work, Dr. Reed teaches music theory to a diverse group of more than sixty children each week at the Barthelmes Conservatory of Music. She resides with her husband, James Reed, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

click here to book speaker