Mel Webb, Ph.D.
- Part-Time Professor , Philosophy
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Mel founded and currently is the Program Director of The Philosophy and Literature Circle at the Dominguez State Jail and the Torres Unit.
Mel Webb is a theological social ethicist whose work is broadly concerned with political, theological, and philosophical constructs of flourishing societies. They study sex, sexuality, and gender; Augustine and Augustinianisms; and methods and movements for healing and transformative justice. Mel has over a dozen years of teaching experience in prisons, seminaries, universities, and online classrooms. They pursue collaborative research opportunities with scholars across several different disciplines, including religious studies, political theory, cognitive psychology, sociology, and educational theory.
- Princeton Theological Seminary, Ph.D. (2016)
- Princeton Theological Seminary, Th.M. (2009)
- Mel Webb, Danielle Allen, Chris Dean, Maggie Schein, David Kidd, Sheena Kang, and Annie Walton Doyle, “Uncovering Implicit Learning Theories in the Humanities: A Study of Grantmaking at Illinois Humanities,” Teacher’s College Record, vol. 122, no. 8 (2020).
- “Recognizing Rituals of Humiliation and Fostering a Hospitable World: A Response to John Boopalan,” Syndicate, Symposium in response to John Boopalan’s Memory, Grief, and Agency: A Political Theological Account of Wrongs and Rites, April 2020.
- Mel Webb, Vincent Lloyd, Joshua Dubler, and Charles Atkins, Jr., “Using the Language of Christian Love and Charity: What Liberal Religion Has to Offer Higher Education in Prison,” in Carceral Intersections: Christianity and the Crisis of Mass Incarceration, a Special Issue of Religions 2019, 10(13), edited by Douglas Campbell and Sarah Jobe.
- “Walking Unhurried through ‘the whole ocean of God’: A Response to Monica Coleman,” Syndicate, Symposium in response to Monica Coleman’s Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman’s Journey with Depression and Faith, August 2019.
- “Towards a ‘Culture of Mercy’: Augustine, Incarceration, and the Transformation of Moral Imagination” in Religion in the Age of Obama, eds. Juan M. Floyd-Thomas and Anthony Pinn. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing (2018): 59-72.
- Carceral Studies
- Healing and Transformative Justice
- Augustine and Augustinianisms
- Sex and Gender
- Higher Education in Prison
- Moral Imagination and US Incarceration
- Peace and Justice
Funding the Public Humanities
Tuesday, October 11, 2022Meet the current and past Public Humanities Faculty Fellows