Justin West

Rev. Dr. Justin West is the Executive Director of the Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action at Aurora University in Illinois. His area of research is African American preaching in the context of higher education. He’s interested in exploring what African American preaching means in the rhetorical and social contexts of a university or college. In his dissertation, Justin explores the university preaching of Howard Washington Thurman during his tenure as Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University in the middle of the 20th century.

Dissertation:

Preaching with His Back Against the Wall: Howard Thurman, Race, and Sacred Rhetoric in Marsh Chapel, 1953—1962