Shannen Dee Williams, Ph.D.

Dr. Shannen Dee Williams is an award-winning historian of the black Catholic diaspora. She is currently writing a book entitled, “Subversive Habits: Black Nuns and the Struggle to Desegregate Catholic America after World I,” which examines the hidden history of black nuns in the fight to dismantle racial and gender barriers in the U.S. Church. When completed, it will be the first historical monograph on black Catholic sisters in twentieth-century America.

Dr. Williams frequently lectures on the history of black Catholic nuns in the Atlantic world and publicly advocates for the revitalization of black female religious life in the United States. Her writings have appeared in Religion Dispatches, The Feminist Wire, the U.S. Catholic Blog, and Patheos.

Requests for speaking and media engagements should be sent to: [email protected]

Background Image: Group Photo of the Oblate Sisters of Providence at Motherhouse in 1929. Courtesy of OSP Archives, Baltimore, MD.