iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I just finished my second theoretical chapter! That means I have two core dissertation chapters down, and two more to go. It’s not perfect and still needs some more work, but I’m halfway done. Now I celebrate with cheesecake lol

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I just finished my rough draft of the first theoretical chapter of my dissertation!

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Yesterday, I received my final conference presentation acceptance! Catch me presenting in November at the annual meetings for the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), the American Anthropological Association (AAA), and American Academy of Religion (AAR).

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

I should be asleep but I’m up staring at my bookshelf, trying to figure out where to fit my favorite novels about Black women and the most recent novels I’ve read about Black women into my dissertation.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

I got my last grant/fellowship rejection today. That means I’ve been rejected from all 11 that I applied for. I take rejection as redirection though, and I’m shifting my energy now to applying for jobs for when I finish my PhD.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

My baby book is one of my most prized possessions because it feels like a love letter from my parents to me. In it, they tell me who they are, their hopes, dreams, and prayers for my life, and trace my growing up.

Yellow book with a little Black baby and the words “Baby’s Heritage” on the front

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

For my March Substack, I returned to Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr.’s article “The Black Church Is Dead” and talk about how it’s still relevant. Also, as Black people leave the church, we need to think more energetically about what it means to create church at the pole studio, in the yoga class, etc.

open.substack.com

The Black Church is On Life Support

In 2010, Dr.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

My latest book review for @sojo.net is out! “Who are the ancestors shaping our lives, churches, and nations? And what are they saying to us? These are the questions Rev. William H. Lamar IV invites us to reflect on in Ancestors.” sojo.net/sojoshare/Nz...

sojo.net

What Are Our ‘Ancestors’ Saying to Us?

AME pastor William H. Lamar IV writes about the ones who journey with us.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

I finished listening to “Kin” on my way to Duke’s Feminist Theory Workshop. Dr. Erica Edwards is currently talking about “Sula” in her keynote speech, and now I’m interested in what it would look like to read “Kin” and “Sula” together.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Also, last night I worked on the part of my dissertation where I discuss why I’m interested in using Communion (the regular definitions and the sacrament) to think about my work and why the core chapters are named for phrases from both the communion liturgy and the communion scripture.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

There are things that are related to my dissertation that I’ve decided will be included as interludes. One of them will briefly discuss mime, flags, and pageantry. They’re things that are related to dance ministry but warrant their own project.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

I don’t know how many words I’ve written today, but I currently have over 4,000 words of my dissertation written. Today I focused on the background of my project and my research sites.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Tomorrow I am preaching on creating spaces of freedom while living under empire from the Gospel of Luke and the life of Fannie Lou Hamer.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

To graduate in May, I need to have a complete draft of my dissertation by the end of January. I’m about to really be in the house until then.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

This weekend, I shared on my PhD research at the AAR-Southeast Conference. My presentation was entitled “Sacred Rituals of Healing and Freedom: Liturgical Dance and Pole Dance in the U.S. South.” I am so excited for all of the forms that my research will take in the coming years!

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

My first presentation on my PhD research went well! I’m glad it I was able to kick it off with an embodied workshop where I could bring my full self, the minister, the liturgical dance scholar, the liturgical dancer, and the pole dancer.

A pole in front of a screen that has the words “Fix Me Jesus” Pole Dance. In front are eight smiling Black women.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

I’ve realized that when I present on my PhD research, I have to practice at least once at home, not because I need the practice but because I’m sensitive and talking about Black women getting free and finding healing through dance makes me emotional. I get all my tears out when I practice at home.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

I’m in my pole dancing to spirituals era. For my embodied workshop next Saturday, I’m ending with a pole dance to “Fix Me, Jesus.” Also, I just started my pole competition piece which pays homage to Alvin Ailey’s Revelations.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

I’m in a new member’s class and they mentioned my dissertation title, except they don’t know they mentioned it because it’s one of the ordinances of this church (and most Baptist churches). I began with the idea of baptism and pole.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

I’ve been thinking about the president’s post on Bad Bunny’s performance & how he named the dancing as “disgusting,” especially given young children were watching. I have thoughts on how the dancing bodies of people of color tend to be sexualized.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

I’ve been thinking about genre in terms of my writing lately. I feel like the sweet spot for me is somewhere between creative nonfiction and scholarly article, but I have to figure out when to let the creative voice lead and when to let the scholarly voice lead.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

On this first day of #BlackHistoryMonth, I’m excited to share that I’ll be presenting my research at the Black Women’s Studies Association Virtual Symposium. My presentation is entitled “ ‘I Feel Free”: Black Women, Dance, and the Labor of Care.” #BlackWomensStudies #Care #Dance

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

I have spent the last two days just organizing my anthropology research notes. I have recorded voice notes, typed phone notes, journal notes, and a number of photos and videos. They all have to be labeled by date and location.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

For those in the NC Triangle area, I’ll be presenting on my PhD research for the first time in a few weeks at Duke University. I’ll be leading an embodied workshop entitled, “Fix Me Jesus: Blackness, Christianity, and Dance Through the Generations” at the Collegium of African Diaspora Dance.

cadd-online.org

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Related to my last post, I figured I’d share more of the history that shaped my short story. It’s about a Black woman domestic worker who “feels the Spirit” at the jook joint (E. Patrick Johnson). So let’s talk about how “Sinners” invites us to think more about Black women and the blues.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

I wrote a short story inspired by Sinners that integrates some of the scholarship I’m engaging for my dissertation research. It’s about Black women’s embodied freedom through dance at the jook joint and seeing the sacred in the blues. I hope the piece finds a home.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

Tomorrow I hope to finish up my last fellowship application, and then I can move onto my essay on Black church girls. It’ll be personal, anthropological, historical and theological.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

I just found out another proposal I submitted for a conference was accepted! That means I’ll be presenting on my research 3 times this Spring. Each presentation will draw from a different part of my dissertation and will force me to actually start writing.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

This year, I’m entering the stage of my PhD program that used to make me anxious and now has me really excited. I’ll be writing my dissertation (and related articles and essays), presenting at conferences, and applying for jobs. It’s the season where I really get to define who I am becoming.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

I was thinking the other day about how someone suggested I do research at a certain megachurch with a Black pastor. I smiled and laughed it off because she was a fan of the pastor. The truth was that my seminary education would not let me participate in that church long enough to do good research.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

One of the things I think about in my research, and part of why I chose pole studios to explore, is the experience of dancing without an audience. It serves different functions in pole and liturgical dance but it comes up in both spaces.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

Everytime my home church pastor asks me to share about my research with the church I am both appreciative and nervous because church folk have come for me for the pole dance part of my research.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

The older I get, the more I appreciate the Baptist church traditions I grew up. Most of the people at church wore red today. And half the congregation stayed after church to see the youth give their recitations/Christmas speeches…

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

I didn’t start seminary a womanist. I arrived focused on the intersections of race and religion. I was focused on how Christianity in the U.S. has been used as a source of both liberation and oppression.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Finished my essay that argues that pole dance is an alternative sacred space to the Black Church for Southern Black women and femmes.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

One of the facts I’ll never forget hearing in my sociology of religion class is that when churches switch to abstinence-only education, it increased the rate of unwanted pregnancies. People didn’t stop having sex. They just stopped using protection.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

I just got my first presentation acceptance for an embodied workshop on my doctoral research, and I can’t wait to share more details!

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

I finally figured out how to work through a section of an essay I’m writing on Black women pole dancers, religion, and the South! I guess all I needed was a vacation/break to come back fresh.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

My October ethnographic vignette/snapshot for my committee was about a moment at a Halloween showcase at a pole fitness studio. My November one is about dancing with a dance ministry at a worship night and the diffference between ministry and a performance.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Another reoccurring theme is that what happens in pole dance can mirror what happens in our lives. The confidence and strength we find in pole, translates into other areas of our life.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

When I talked to pole dancers at Pole Con (I’m cleaning up the transcripts now), I asked them what’s something that I should make sure to say as I’m doing this research. The top answer was that pole dancing is for everyone (inclusive of all sizes and abilities).

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Up late working on the email I’m going to send to my dissertation committee tomorrow. My advisor recommended that I reach out once a month during my “field research” year with short ethnographic vignettes so that I can get into the habit of writing ethnographically, meaning very descriptively.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

One of the most interesting aspects of my research on pole dance is the answers I get when I ask people where they root the history of pole dance because it plays into how they justify their participation in it for themselves and for others. It also reflects their goals.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Today research looks like back-to-back liturgical dance rehearsals from 9:30-1:00.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

There’s been a lot of talk and discussion about the Black Church and Black churches lately. As someone who earned a certificate in Black Church Studies, I figured I’d share a snapshot of some of the books in the “Black Church and related topics” section of my bookshelf.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

Revisiting Tamura Lomax’s “Jezebel Unhinged” for a piece on that new Tyler Perry movie, and everything she said about his movies definitely applies to this new one.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

I’m watching Ruth and Boaz. They made Boaz a kind, church going, good looking, educated man, on top of him being wealthy. The girlies about to be out here looking for their Boaz again. (Aside from owning land, this ain’t the Boaz from the Bible.) I do appreciate Naomi’s grief journey though.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

This is also why a chapter of my dissertation focuses on theology. I explore what it means to be a Christian and a pole dancer and how that is both shaped by and shapes theology.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

I posted my second worship pole dance video on TikTok, and the super Christians are coming for me. But it’s only the Black super Christians. I’d be interested in whether race matters and also whether denomination matters in how people respond.

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Deirdre Jonese Austin @deirdrejonese.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

I’ve spent the last few weeks working on a conference proposal, a fellowship application, and a short story. Tonight I also started a creative nonfiction essay for an academic journal. I want to be able to write across platforms and to a wide range of audiences.

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