Dr. Julia Robinson Moore is Associate Professor of Religion in the Department of Religious Studies and an Affiliate Faculty member in the Departments of Africana Studies and History. Trained as a historian, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in African American religious history and religions of the African Diaspora. She is also the principal director of The Preserving Sacred Spaces Initiative (PSSI) at UNC Charlotte. PSSI facilitates student learning through religious literacy, architectural history, historical research, and architectural design of unmarked cemeteries connected to Presbyterian churches in Charlotte. Her current book project, Rethinking Lynching and Mimetic Theory explores the history of lynching in North Carolina through the lens of Rene´Girard. Her most recent book, Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: Reverend Robert L. Bradby and the Making of Urban Detroit (2015 and republished in 2024), explores the history of the first Black Baptist Church in Detroit and its partnership with influential figures like Henry Ford and Clarence Darrow during the Great Migration.
Research Interests
American religious history, mimetic theory, historic preservation, memorialization, and the history of Presbyterianism in the city of Charlotte.