Kimberly Rae Connor

Kimberly Rae Connor is the author of Conversions and Visions in the Writings of African American Women (Tennessee, 1994) and Imagining Grace: Liberating Theologies in the Slave Narrative Tradition (Illinois, 2000). She has written extensively on African American religious life and cultural production and multicultural and Ignatian pedagogy. Connor has also been active as an editor for Oxford University Press and in service to the American Academy of Religion.

Although trained in the humanities, Connor has brought to the School of Management an appreciation for how spiritual,  literary, and philosophical inquiry can help develop the careers of students in management. She blogs for USF Blogs on the same topic.

• African American Religious and Literary Culture
• Religion and Literature
• Ignatian Pedagogy
• Applied Humanities

• Faculty Chair for Mission Integration, Lane Center for Catholic Social Thought and the Ignatian Tradition, 2019-
• Secretary, Board of Directors, American Academy of Religion, 2017-2021

• PhD, Religious Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1991
• MA, Religious Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1988
• MA, Literature and Theology, University of Bristol, England, 1981
• BA, English (Magna Cum Laude), Gettysburg College, PA, 1979

• Associate Editor, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2010–17
• Editor, Academy Book Series, American Academy of Religion/Oxford University Press, 2002–12
• Visiting Professor, St. Mary's College
• Adjunct Instructor, Piedmont Virginia Community College
• Assistant Professor, James Madison University

• Outstanding Faculty Award, Professor, School of Management, 2018.

• Outstanding Faculty Award, Professor, School of Management, 2016.

• Undergraduate Office Service Award, School of Management, 2016.

• John Miller Mission Support and Advocacy Award, University of San Francisco School of Management, 2012

• Teacher of the Year, University of San Francisco, USF College of Professional Studies, 2003

• Outstanding Academic Book (Humanities), Choice, for Imagining Grace: Liberating Theologies in the Slave Narrative Tradition, 2000

• Chair, American Academy of Religion Publications Committee and JAAR Editor Search Committee, 2011-2014

• Curator, "Textimonies: Early Etchings and Stencils by Glenn Ligon." Thacher Gallery, University of San Francisco, January 23–February 27, 2011

• "Redeeming the Age in Which We Live: Ignazio Silone’s The Story of a Humble Christian." Religions. 10.9 (2019): https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10090494
• "Redeeming the Human Reality: African American Religion and Literature." Teaching Religion and Literature. Eds. Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz New York: Routledge, 2018: 82-97.
• "Mystery and Bad Manners: Flannery O’Connor and Mary Karr." The Flannery O’Connor Review. 15 (August 2017): 70-79.
• "The Management Exercises: A Way Forward With Purpose." With Richard W. Stackman. Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal. 5.2 (2016): 40-55.
• "Worrying the Line: Blues as Story, Song, and Prayer," Blues- Philosophy for Everyone, Eds. Abrol Fairweather and Jesse Steinberg, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012