Melanie R. Hill, Ph.D. is the Named Term Chair Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Global Racial Justice and Assistant Professor of American Literature in the Department of English at Rutgers University–Newark, specializing in African American Literature, Black Music Performance, and Womanist Literature/Thought/Theology. She earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, with graduate certificates in Africana Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Dr. Hill’s scholarship explores the intersections of literature, music, theology, and Black feminist/womanist thought. She has published on the art of the sermon in African American literature, Black feminism and womanism, and the performance practices of blues and jazz vocalists Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald in the James Baldwin Review, Religions, Oxford University Press, and as a reviewer for the Yale Journal of Music and Religion. She has also served as Associate Research Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion and Literature at Yale University.
Her forthcoming book, Colored Women Sittin' on High: Womanist Sermonic Practice in Literature and Music (UNC Press) examines how Black women preachers in literature, music, and sacred spaces challenge social injustice through sermon and song. The book is now available for preorder.
In 2024, Dr. Hill was invited to Paris, France as keynote speaker and featured solo violinist for the James Baldwin Centennial Celebration, honoring the 100th anniversary of Baldwin’s birth. Her research and pedagogy have also been recognized by Princeton University’s Mellon Research Forum and the Teagle Foundation.
Alongside her scholarship, Dr. Hill is a classically trained Gospel-Soul Violinist, performing nationally and internationally. She has appeared at the White House (twice under the Obama administration), the Kennedy Center, the Apollo Theater, the Staples Center, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and performed for Pope Francis’s Papal Mass during his historic U.S. visit. Her media appearances include Showtime at the Apollo, Good Day Philadelphia, Philadelphia Style Magazine, NY1, BET, and TV One. She has performed for Alice Walker, Senator Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, Sabrina Fulton, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, Susan L. Taylor, and has opened for John Legend and Jonathan McReynolds.
As part of the Mourning into Unity project, she performed at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., honoring lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, and later opened for the National Council of Churches before the sermon of Bishop Michael B. Curry.
Dr. Hill remains grateful for God’s blessings and is committed to uplifting others through music, scholarship, and the sacred connections between literature, song, and spiritual healing.