Yara González-Justiniano

Assistant Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture

Rev. Dr. Yara González-Justiniano is Assistant Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture with emphasis on Latinx Studies and affiliated faculty of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University. She is a practical theologian and minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She received a PhD in Theological Studies with a concentration in Church and Society from Boston University School of Theology, where she also received her Master of Divinity. At the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. González-Justiniano earned a B.A. in Audiovisual Communications with a concentration on film; she also double majored in theater and modern languages. Her educational journey of interdisciplinarity informs the ways in which she approaches theological studies.

The overarching themes of her scholarship are grounded in questions that pertain to practices of social justice, liberation, community, macro psychological analysis, hope, and art. In her most recent book, Centering Hope as a Sustainable Decolonial Practice: Esperanza en Práctica(2022), she wrestles with answering the question of what hope looks like amid socioeconomic crisis. Her interdisciplinary approach to this inquiry grounds itself in ethnographic research in hopes of finding practices that enable a hope that can sustain the collective. Her second book, tentatively titled Exhausting All Possibilities: Healing in Place, will explore issues of place and displacement in colonized contexts. 

Prior to joining Vanderbilt Divinity faculty, Dr. González-Justiniano was Visiting Assistant Professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary as a Louisville Postdoctoral Fellow. Here she also served as DMin program Track Adviser for the students in the Preaching and Leadership in LatinX Congregations track. Dr. González-Justiniano serves in the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee of the American Academy of Religion. And is secretary-treasurer of the Association of Practical Theology.

She is a mentor and facilitator for PhD and master students in theological education in programs like the Hispanic Scholars Program, the Forum of Theological Education, and the Hispanic Theological Initiative. She is a grant evaluator for the Hispanic Access Foundation. She is the faculty advisor for the Latinx Seminarians at VDS. Her teaching philosophy centers on fostering critical thinking, cultural awareness, and empathy among her students, encouraging them to engage deeply with diverse perspectives and approaches to understanding the complex liberative and integral practices that make up the human experience. Her research and teaching interests include Latinx theologies, Latin American Liberation theology, ecclesiology and pastoral theologies, memory studies, postcolonial and decolonial theory, popular culture and film, and popular religion and theologies of hope. 

Courses taught at VDS

DIV 7033 Catastrophe, Trauma, and Hope

DIV 7009 Theopoetics: Embodied God-Talk in Works of Art and Culture

DIV 7010 Models of Hope for Peoples and Communities

DIV 7000 Pastoral Theology and Care

DIV 7030 Latinx Pastoral Theology and Thought