Princeton, NJ, March 29, 2012–Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, associate professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, will deliver the Geddes W. Hanson Lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary on Monday, April 9 at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Lounge of the Mackay Campus Center. The title of her lecture is “When Patience is No Longer a Virtue: Sub Rosa Amorality in a Postmodern Era.” Hanson was the Seminary’s first African American professor when he joined the faculty in 1969.

Floyd-Thomas, who is also executive director of both the Society of Christian Ethics and the Black Religious Scholars Group, holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Temple University, a M.T.S. from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and a B.A. from Vassar College.

Her research and interests lie at the intersection of ethics, feminist/womanist studies, Black church studies, crucial pedagogy, critical race theory, and postcolonial studies with an overall approach to the study of Christian social ethics that engage broad questions of moral agency, cultural memory, ethical responsibility and social justice.

A widely published author, Floyd-Thomas has written Mining the Motherlode: Methods in Womanist Ethics (Pilgrim Press, 2006), Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society (New York University Press, 2006), and Black Church Studies: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2007), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Her current projects include Exodus in America: The Unlikely Alliance between White Jews and Black Christians, Liberation Theologies: A Primer, Making It Plain: Approaches to African American Christian Social Ethics, and The Westminster John Knox Press Dictionary of African American Religion Thought.

She has received numerous honors and awards, including the Texas Christian University Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Achievement at a Creative Teacher and Scholar, Brite Divinity School’s Catherine Saylor Hill Faculty Excellence Award in Scholarship, Teaching, and Service, the Louise Clark Brittan Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching, and the American Academy of Religion’s Excellence in Teaching Award.                         

The Hanson Lecture, a biannual lectureship established at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1992 by the Association of Black Seminarians, was named to honor Geddes W. Hanson in recognition of his outstanding academic and spiritual guidance to the students of Princeton Theological Seminary.

He earned his Ph.D. from the Seminary in 1972. At the Seminary he taught in the areas of administration and ministry, specializing in religious groups as complex organizations and in ministry as leadership within such groups. In 1996, he was named the Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Congregational Ministry; he retired in 2009.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact the Office of Communications/Publications at 609.497.7760 or visit www.ptsem.edu. 

Celebrating its Bicentennial in 2012, Princeton is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than 500 students in six graduate degree programs.