As an interdisciplinary scholar of religion and race in the Americas, Josef employs primarily historical and literary approaches to the study of religion in black communities and cultures in the United States. His first book, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 2016) illumines how religion has figured in debates about black art and culture across the 20th century. Josef's second book - The Holy Holy Black: The Ironies of an African American Secular - is forthcoming, also with Oxford UP. Additionally, Josef is editing an anthology tentatively titled The Sexual Politics of Black Churches.