14 January 2023

Tenure & Promotion Committee

State University of New York, Cortland
22 Graham Avenue
Cortland, NY 13045

Dear Tenure & Promotion Committee:

It is my pleasure to write in support of Dr. Michael Tillotson’s promotion to Full Professor in the
Africana Studies Department at SUNY, Cortland.

I have known Dr. Tillotson more than seventeen years.

About my qualifications to evaluate Dr. Tillotson for promotion to Full Professor: I am the
Inaugural Chair of one of the newer departments in Africana Studies, the Department of African
& African American Studies at Louisiana State University. I have been Chair since it became a
department in 2021 and Director since 2016 when AAAS was a program in the College of
Humanities & Social Science in Liberal Arts programming. Moreover, I was Executive Director
of the Society for the Study of Black Religion from 2018 to 2020. My book, In and Out of This
World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam, was recently published by
Duke University Press.

I know Tillotson to be an outstanding scholar of rigor, creativity, and good repute.

His 2 books, 1 co-edited journal special issue, 12 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 book chapters,
and 6 book reviews exceed the quantity necessary for promotion to full professor at many very
high research activity (formerly research one) universities. Yet, I want to spend the majority of
my time extolling the value of the impact of this scholarship on Africana Studies as a discipline.
Let me state at the outset that Dr. Tillotson’s scholarship has contributed to—and expanded the
discipline of—Africana Studies in many ways, theoretically, methodologically, and
conceptually. For instance, in my reading of his books and articles, I am acutely aware of how
 Dr. Michael Tillotson
SUNY Cortland
p. 2

his notions of Agency Reduction Formation (ARF), Agency Studies, his use of “anti-egalitarian
practices” as a trope for racialized structures, policies, and behaviors that does not have the
political baggage of “racism” as a popular nomenclature, and which can be described and
supported through social scientific and empirical research. In addition, his attention to religion
and the role that it plays in the lives of African Americans and their agency, Applied Africana
Studies, and his continuing development and public lectures on “Invisible Jim Crow,” such as his
2012 and 2014 lectures, have all established him as a cutting-edge scholar in Africana Studies.
All the concepts and frameworks—and these are not exhaustive of his contributions to
Africana/African American Studies—are strong interventions or original theorizations and
conceptualizations of the work in the discipline.

Moreover, and I say this in the strongest possible terms, Tillotson is one of the more
sophisticated and creative thinkers of our generation of Africana scholars. His work, in the form
of books, multiple peer-reviewed articles, and lectures testify to this, and the discipline affirms
this. For example, in April 2022, the Department of African American and African Diaspora
Studies at Indiana University honored Tillotson’s contributions for their 50th anniversary
Department celebration. The meeting, “Agency Reduction Formation and Its Intervention in
Africana Studies,” hosted a series of panels and addresses revolving around the significance of
ARF and its application in various discourses of Africana Studies.

One of my primary areas of scholarship in Africana Studies is at the intersection of race and
religion and how the language, theories, and deployment of the relationship between them
appears in scholarship, both within and outside of Africana Studies. It is at this intersection, in
fact, that Dr. Tillotson’s work has been the most impactful, albeit this conceptional interstice
plays out in numerous places in his research.

The impact of Tillotson’s work is, indeed, direct. I was fortunate to contribute an article on
“racism” in Religious Studies to a special-issue peer-reviewed Africana Studies journal on
Tillotson’s notion of Agency Reduction Formation in which I urged scholars to consider
importance of religion (and theory of religion) for the discipline, something that Tillotson was
already engaging in his work. I addressed the specific matter of agency reduction, as did other
contributors, in the International Journal of Africana Studies (vol. 5, no. 4, March 2018), where
Tillotson says, “Agency Reduction Formation (ARF) is the theoretical construct that I developed
as part of my response to the critical need for an African Centered Diagnostic. ARF is
operationalized as: ‘Any system of thought that distracts, neutralizes or reduces the need and
desire for assertive collective agency by African Americans.’ ARF is a diagnostic tool of
analysis to test a system of thought, a movement and anything in human existences that affects
African descended people negatively. Its intended use is to expose ideas which are antithetical to
 Dr. Michael Tillotson
SUNY Cortland
p. 3

the collective advancement of African people” (p. 192). It was to his novel category of ARF and
his advancement of Agency Studies that directed my remark when I claimed, “To this end,
religion may be seen as a crucial resource in the creation of new subjectivities that expand—
rather than reduce—agency.”

In other words, the nature of the way that I framed my article was in direct response to and in
support of his concern for ARF. I cannot underestimate the significance of this.

As a scholar, I am always aware that my primary function is the creations and dissemination of
new knowledge and to extend and expand the disciplines in which I work. I am ever vigilant
regarding how people take up my creative interventions into these thought systems, and I know,
as does everyone who is a professional scholar, that not every scholar’s work is cited as
important to ongoing scholarly endeavors, nor are their creative and original interventions, if
they are even willing to risk making such bold intellectual moves, thought worthy of
engagement.

Undeniably, Tillotson’s formulations were in mind when I concluded that African American
religion “has the potential to disentangle and destabilize its [i.e., European imperialistic
religion’s] ideological structure in pursuit of new subjectivities.” This is my testament to his
influence.

Furthermore, it was his command of theory and methodology in Africana Studies, his primary
disciplinary orientation, that was the cause of his invitations to deliver prestigious Africana
Studies keynote lectures at Lehman College in 2016 and 2017, as well as addresses at Indiana
University and Temple University. And it was his standing in the discipline that led to our
invitation for him to lecture at Louisiana State University in March 2018 in honor of our
program’s (now Department’s) twenty-fifth anniversary. His address, “The Three Schools of
Thought in Africana Studies,” initiated some of our public scholarly presentations, culminating
in our anniversary observation in 2019. It should be noted that such a grand subject as the
schools of thought undergirding a particular discipline is generally a topic that one would expect
from a senior scholar. That’s the point; Tillotson has had the regard and standing of a senior
scholar in the discipline for years prior to his formal application for Full Professor at SUNY
Cortland. The ability to deliver the lecture demonstrated his depth and breadth that is only
possible given acute expertise. I should note that we had been attempting to schedule a lecture on
Tillotson’s busy calendar for a few years prior to this, and it was fortunate for us and our AAAS
25@25 Fundraising Campaign and Anniversary Celebration, at the time, that we were able to
hear from him on such an auspicious occasion.
 Dr. Michael Tillotson
SUNY Cortland
p. 4

Dr. Michael Tillotson is worthy of promotion to Full Professor based upon his work and the
impact that it has in Africana Studies and cognate scholarly arenas. One only has to note the
many articles, dissertations, and commentaries on his contributions to glean his impact on the
discipline, impact and production that warrants the highest regard and academic status that his
Department and university can offer him.

As a mid-career scholar, Dr. Tillotson has many more years that he will be productive. Yet, it is
astounding to witness the name that he has made for himself, the senior-level panels and
recognition given to his scholarship, and the public addresses to which he is invited to deliver.
I ask that you bestow upon him the status of Full Professor in recognition and respect of these
accomplishments.

Regards,

Stephen C. Finley, Ph.D., Associate Professor/Inaugural Chair

Department of African & African American Studies
Louisiana State University
135 Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
scfinley@lsu.edu
225.257.4068 (H)/225.578.7023 (O)