John O. Hodges was born in the Mississippi Delta town of Greenwood, where he attended segregated schools and graduated as valedictorian from Broad Street High School 1n 1963. He won a full-tuition scholarship to attend Morehouse College where he was an honor student and was selected as a Merrill Scholar to travel and study in Europe. As a student in Nantes, France, Hodges, acted in plays and passed various exams signifying fluency in French.

He received a Master’s degree in English from Atlanta University and a Master’s and PhD in religion and literature from The University of Chicago Divinity School. He taught in the English Department at Barat College where he also served as Chair of African American Studies. He accepted a position at the University of Tennessee in 1982 and worked there until his retirement from the Department of Religious Studies in December 2010. While at UT, he was been recognized as an outstanding teacher by the UT National Alumni Association and has won several other awards including the Lorayne Lester Award for distinguished service to the university.

Hodges has traveled throughout Europe and West Africa and has lectured on African American religion in China. He has published articles in such journals as The CLA Journal, The Langston Hughes Review, Soundings, and The Southern Quarterly. His book, Delta Fragments: The Recollections of a Sharecropper’s Son, details his experiences as a youth growing up in the Mississippi Delta during the 1950s and 1960s,

He lives in Knoxville with his wife Carolyn, who is Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School. They have one son, Daniel, who lives in Dallas Texas, where he works as a computer engineer.