McClintock Fulkerson was ordained in the Concord Presbytery of the PC(U.S.A.) in 1978, after which she moved to the New Hope Presbytery in 1984. She began her career as a Parish Associate Minister of Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1981. Her husband was a medical fellow at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.[1]
McClintock Fulkerson began her teaching career as an instructor at Duke Divinity School in 1983, making her the only woman on the faculty at the time.[1] Her instructor position at Duke was followed by assistant and associate professorships at Duke and as the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Visiting associate professor at Vanderbilt from 2001 to 2003.[4] In 1994, McClintock Fulkerson became the third woman in Duke Divinity School history to be granted tenure.[1] In 2019, as the longest-serving member of the Duke Divinity School faculty, McClintock Fulkerson became a professor emerita.[4]
McClintock Fulkerson has published a number of books and articles. Her 1994 book Changing the Subject: Women's Discourses and Feminist Theology examines the practices of Pentecostal women, white Presbyterian women, and academic feminists as sites of liberation.[5] Her 2007 book Places of Redemption: Theology for a Worldly Church examines ecclesial practices in conversation with racism, ableism, and other forms of systemic injustice.[2] McClintock Fulkerson's most recent book publication is A Body Broken, A Body Betrayed: Race, Memory, and Eucharist in White Dominant Churches, co-written with Marcia Mount Shoop and published in 2016.[3] Her methodology includes anthropology, ethnography, and literary criticism.[1]
McClintock Fulkerson is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and a member of the denomination's national Advocacy for Women Task Force. At Duke Divinity School, she is the faculty sponsor of both the Women's Center and the LGBTQ+ student group Sacred Worth, as well as the director of the Program in Gender, Theology, and Ministry. McClintock Fulkerson's teaching interests include practical theology, feminist theologies, contemporary Protestant theology, authority in theology, and ecclesiology.[2] In 2016, student protests for improved conditions for LGBTQ+ students at Duke Divinity School led to the formation of a task force charged with addressing a variety of climate issues.[6] McClintock Fulkerson was appointed to this task force by then-dean Elaine Heath. Recent courses McClintock Fulkerson has taught at Duke Divinity School include "Christ and Culture Theory," "Feminist Theology," "Authority in Theology," and "Contemporary Theology: Selected Figures."[3]
McClintock Fulkerson is currently involved in the "Pauli Murray Project: Activating History for Social Change" through the Duke Human Rights Center.[2] In 2020, she was named one of three 2020 Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion Distinguished Alumni/ae.
