Austin Seminary Receives Grant to Assemble a Postcolonial Trauma-Informed Hermeneutic for Interpreting the Book of Lamentations

Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is excited to announce that it has received a research grant to assemble a postcolonial trauma-informed hermeneutic for interpreting the book of Lamentations. The grant, through the Louisville Institute and funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., will allow the Seminary to study how modern experiences of imperial violence can inform a deeper understanding of the empire-trauma nexus in the book of Lamentations while also helping to reveal unseen strategies of trauma care for contemporary readers. The Reverend Dr. Gregory Cuéllar, Professor in the Ruth A. Campbell Chair of Biblical Studies, wrote the grant and will be charged with conducting the research and assembling the findings into a book project. 

“This research reclaims the book of Lamentations as a vital theological and pastoral resource for today’s world of postcolonial trauma,” explains Cuéllar. “By bringing its ancient poetry into conversation with the lived experiences of asylum seekers, survivors of genocide, and descendants of enslaved communities, I hope to expose the empire-building forces that still govern lives today—and offer new pathways for care, justice, and healing.” 

The project centers the places and people traumatized by modern empire-building and uses their witness to inform a reading of Lamentations as a healing resource for religious leaders, clergy, and faith-based humanitarians. The research sites, essential to the project’s goals, are domestic and international locations of postcolonial trauma-laden contexts of borderlands, genocide, and slavery. Each site is rife with rich insights and wisdom on postcolonial trauma and its care that, in turn, can inform new understandings of trauma in Lamentations. After carefully synthesizing research findings, Cuéllar will publish a book that interprets the postcolonial traumas woven into the poetry of Lamentations. 

Given its proximity to the Texas-Mexico border and a theological focus on the borderlands, Austin Seminary aims to create a unique cross-cultural learning environment that embodies border realities. This grant-funded research will help create a relevant resource for adaptive and imaginative religious leaders to use in caring for today’s traumatized victims of empire-building violence. Cuéllar said, “This project embodies the kind of scholarship that can speak prophetically from the borderlands, and I’m grateful to pursue it in a seminary context committed to public witness and faithful inquiry.”