Marlon Millner

Background

About Marlon Millner

Marlon Millner is the director of The Center for Black Studies at Northern Illinois University, with an affiliate faculty appointment in the Department of Sociology. As director, Millner oversees a budget, and all academic, resource, and programming initiatives of the center. He manages and supports four professional staff, and several graduate and undergraduate student staff. The center operates a Black studies minor and certificate academic program, supports more than 20 Black student organizations, in addition to working with the Divine Nine Pan-Hellenic groups, and Black domestic and international students, the NIU Black Alumni Council, and Black focused community groups in DeKalb, Illinois and Chicagoland. Millner earned his Ph.D. at Northwestern University in religious studies. His work brings together critical social theory, Black studies, and political philosophy. His dissertation re-examined the early 20th century American Pentecostal movement. Millner broadly focuses on Christianity and colonialism and their intertwined relationship in forging modernity and racial hierarchy. He studies the development of the category of religion and the development of racial Blackness through European conquest and global expansion. Marlon also studies the legacies of these critical terms in development of contemporary critical theory and theories and social practices of secularism, gender and sexuality. Millner combines academic work with a background in journalism and social activism. With a unique professional history, he has worked for two decades in journalism and communications. Millner also is an ordained minister, who has worked in local and global religious organizations. Finally, he has a deep commitment to social justice and has worked and volunteered for a variety of cause and justice organizations and has experience in public policy advocacy and development, constituency outreach and community organizing. Additionally, he served two terms on a local city council in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.