Religion Department Welcomes Assistant Professor With Expertise in Indigenous Traditions and Law

By Jacqueline Shaw (Contributing Reporter: Nina Dube)

We are so excited to welcome Dr. Khrystyne Wilson as an Assistant Professor to the Religion Department!

“I'm thrilled to join the faculty at CLU,” Dr. Wilson says. “During my visit last spring, I was impressed by the caliber of students and the university's commitment to service. I'm excited to bring my expertise in Indigenous religions and religious freedom to the department and I look forward to serving as a bridge between CLU and Indigenous communities.”

Dr. Wilson obtained her Ph.D. in American Indian Studies and her J.D. in Indigenous Law at the University of Arizona. Dr. Wilson notes that she intentionally chose a degree in American Indian Studies because of its service aspect: “American Indian Studies (AIS) as a discipline came out of 1970s political movements where American Indians were pushing back against how our academia is complicit in furthering colonial narratives. AIS purposefully developed with this idea that academia needs to give back and undo some of the things it has been continuing to perpetuate.”

Dr Wilson’s research is thus rooted in her desire to resist and reformulate these colonial narratives and work in communities to teach and effect change. Her research focuses on Indigenous religious traditions and how American law has impacted Indigenous religious freedom, often through definitions of religion that have excluded Indigenous practices. 

"Indigenous Peoples in the United States have consistently faced religious persecution through forced conversion, cultural assimilation, and prohibition of Indigenous religious practices,” Dr. Wilson notes. “Today, the United States continues to place barriers for Native Americans to practice their religions freely through opening up sacred sites for resource extraction, and controlling who can have access to ritual spaces and cultural items."

Dr. Wilson didn’t always want to go into religious studies. She attended Cornell University as an undergraduate intending to study biology and become a doctor, but realized she wasn’t very interested in the field. She happened to take a course about the apostle Paul and the New Testament and fell in love with studying religion.

“I didn’t know that you could study religion with a critical lens or examine the history of religions,” she says. Dr. Wilson graduated from Cornell with a degree in Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies (Biblical Archaeology).

Before she began attending the University of Missouri for her master’s, Dr. Wilson traveled to Peru and notes an interesting and funny experience with some American tourists that sparked her interest in religious freedom:

“I ran into these tourists from Venice Beach, and they were telling me how they found a shaman online and he was going to take them up the backside of Machu Picchu and they were all going to do peyote together,” she recalls. “And I was like, ‘What a strange confluence of things. You found a shaman and you’re going to do peyote, which is a hallucinogenic from the Southeast US, in Peru. Why did you come from the US to Peru to do these things?’”

At the University of Missouri, Dr. Wilson met Chumash scholar Dennis Kelley who inspired her to study Indigenous religious practice in America and became her mentor.

Dr. Wilson is from Boston and grew up on a family farm in Lexington. She loves living near the ocean in California and has had a very positive experience so far in Thousand Oaks and at Cal Lutheran. Dr. Wilson comes from larger institutions so coming to a small community and getting to know more people has been an interesting experience for her. She hopes to get more involved on campus with the Pre-Law Society and the SEED Garden, as well as local Indigenous communities in Thousand Oaks. Dr. Wilson is an animal lover and has four pets: two dogs, Hercules and Panini, and two cats, Frida and Oscar. Fun fact: Dr. Wilson has had Hercules since her undergraduate years! She also loves to bake.

For the Fall 2023 semester, Dr. Wilson is teaching Religion, Identity & Vocation (RLTH 100), but she will begin teaching more courses during the Spring 2024 semester. She will be teaching Indigenous Rights & Practices (HNRS 348) and Religion & Public Life (RLTH 382) which explores the role of religion and religious freedom in US law and policy. If these are topics that interest you, be sure to register for Dr. Wilson’s courses!

We are greatly looking forward to working with Dr. Wilson as part of the Religion Department. Welcome to the Cal Lutheran community!