Meet the Moderator: LaRyssa Herrington

LaRyssa Herrington is a 4^th year doctoral student in Systematic Theology at the University of Notre Dame from Tolono, Illinois. She holds bachelor’s degrees in psychology and social work from Greenville College and is a graduate of Emory University’s Candler School of Theology where she completed her Master of Divinity concentrating in Catholic Studies. Her areas of research include the role of Mary in devotional and popular piety, womanist theology, eschatology as it relates to the historical and contemporary conditions of diasporic Africans, ritual studies, and sacramental theology.

Currently, her dissertation, titled “Theorizing Diaspora: Recovering the Fragments of the Black Madonna in the Americas,” is focused on the retrieval of the image of the Black Madonna as she has appeared throughout Christian history, exploring the cultural and religious significance of Mary/Marian embodiment and inculturation for diasporic Africans in the Americas.