Biography
Leonard C. McKinnis II, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A scholar of Black religion and an ethnographer of religion, his research and teaching focus on Black religious traditions in the United States and African diaspora, particularly the intersections of religion, race, materiality, embodiment, and everyday life. During the 2026–2027 academic year, he is an Associate in the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois.
McKinnis is the author of The Black Coptic Church: Race and Imagination in a New Religion (New York University Press, 2023), an ethnographic study of race, religious imagination, and the formation of a Black religious movement. His current book project, Everyday Muslim: Lived Religion and Material Spirituality in the Nation of Islam, examines the everyday religious and spiritual lives of Nation of Islam believers.
His scholarship also extends into public-facing and multimedia forms, including documentary work on the historic Chicago residence of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. His research has been supported by the Louisville Institute, University of Illinois Humanities Research Institute, Princeton University, the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois, the Campus Research Board at the University of Illinois, the American Academy of Religion, and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion.
McKinnis serves as General Editor of the Religion, Race, and Ethnicity series at New York University Press and on the Executive Board of the Society for the Study of Black Religion.
Research Interests
- African American Religion
- Nation of Islam
- Black Coptic Church
- African American New Religious Movements
- Black Theology
- Ethnography and Religion
Research Description
My research examines the religious worlds of Black communities in the United States and African diaspora, with particular attention to how religion is lived, embodied, and materialized in everyday life. As an ethnographer of religion, I am especially interested in religious communities and practices that complicate conventional categories for understanding Black religion. Across my work, I ask how Black communities construct theological worlds through bodies, material culture, sacred spaces, food, dress, media, memory, and the ordinary practices of daily life.
My current book project, Everyday Muslim: Lived Religion and Material Spirituality in the Nation of Islam, is an ethnographic study of the everyday religious lives of Nation of Islam believers. Rather than approaching the Nation primarily through the categories of Black nationalism or political ideology, the project begins with religion and asks what becomes visible when the Nation of Islam is examined as a religious tradition. The book develops material spirituality as a framework for understanding how theological ideas become tangible through embodied and material practices and how believers encounter the spiritual through the material conditions of everyday life.
My broader research explores Black Chicago's religious history, Black Muslim traditions, religion and media, and the relationship between race, materiality, and the body. Together, these projects seek to expand the study of Black religion by taking seriously the everyday spaces, practices, objects, and bodies through which religious worlds are made.
Education
PhD | Loyola University of Chicago
Master of Theological Studies (MTS) | Harvard University
BS | Lewis Catholic University
Awards and Honors
Sample:
Crossroads Fellow, Princeton University
American Academy of Religion Individual Researcher Grant Award
Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant for Researchers
Courses Taught
REL 134: Religion, Race, and Resistance
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, African American Studies
Associate Professor, Religion
Recent Publications
McKinnis, LC. (2026). Disruption: Anthony Pinn, Black Disbelief, and the Expansion of the Black Religions. Secular Studies, 8(1), 123-134. https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-bja10064
McKinnis, L. C. (2025). Allah Has Truly Blessed Me: Material Spirituality Among Believers in the Nation of Islam . Nova Religio, 29(1), 95-111. https://doi.org/10.1353/nvr.2025.a967008
McKinnis, L. C. (2025). The Messenger's Residence: Nation Building in the Nation of Islam. Digital or Visual Products, Princeton University. https://www.crossroads-spirithouse.org/mckinnis
McKinnis, L. C. (2023). Review: S.C. Finley's In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam. African American Review, 56(3), 244-245. https://doi.org/10.1353/afa.2023.a920503
McKinnis, L. C. (2023). The Black Coptic Church: Race and Imagination in a new Religion. (Religion, Race, and Ethnicity). NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479816484.001.0001