Dr. Yolanda Pierce is an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington, Kentucky. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in English and African-American Studies from Cornell University, and her B.A. degree in English and Religion from Princeton University.

Dr. Pierce’s primary research focus is Religious Rhetoric within the African-American Slave Narrative and Autobiography tradition. She also teaches and researches Black Women’s writings, African-American Theatre and Performance, and the literature of the Black Diaspora.

As a specialist in Slave Narratives, Dr. Pierce is currently finishing a book titled Hell Without Fires: Slave Religion and the Antebellum Spiritual Narrative which uses African-American authored spiritual narratives from 1780-1830. Hell Without Fires is a comprehensive overview of the dynamics of slave religion as presented by formerly enslaved preachers and evangelists. Central to this book is a discussion of gender, class, and biblical rhetoric in antebellum America.

Dr. Pierce has published extensively. She has authored several articles, book chapters, and book reviews. Her recent article, "How Saul Became Paul: Early African-American Conversion" was awarded the Ochillo Prize by the Southern Conference on Afro-American Studies. Dr. Pierce’s chapter "African-American Women’s Spiritual Narratives," in the 2001 Cambridge Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Women Writers discusses the impact of the writings of nineteenth-century Black female evangelists, missionaries, and preachers.

Dr. Pierce is a member of several scholarly organizations, including: the Modern Language Association (MLA); the American Academy of Religion (AAR); and Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States (MELUS). She is a native New Yorker, and mother of a young daughter, Alex Nicole.

While on fellowship at the Womanist Scholars Program, Dr. Pierce will be teaching a course titled "We Have Been Believers: Black Religion and Black Literature." This course uses literature to chart the history of religion among African Americans in their passage from slavery to freedom, examining all forms of black spiritual life.