--- title: Volney Gay | TIME description: Gay is professor of religious studies, psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University and the author of On the Pleasures of Owning Persons canonical: https://time.com/author/volney-gay/ og:title: TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:url: https://time.com/author/volney-gay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 300 og:image:height: 300 og:image:alt: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:type: profile twitter:card: summary twitter:title: TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates twitter:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Volney Gay ## Volney Gay _Gay is professor of religious studies, psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University and the author of_ On the Pleasures of Owning Persons ## Volney Gay *  Jun 17, 2016 ### [Why All Americans Should Celebrate Juneteenth](https://time.com/4373253/juneteenth-2016/) The holiday is about liberty—not race [IDEAS](/section/ideas/) Meta: null ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","@id":"https://time.com/","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/author/volney-gay/","name":"Volney Gay"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Person","@id":"https://time.com/author/volney-gay/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/author/volney-gay/"},"name":"Volney Gay","jobTitle":null,"description":"Gay is professor of religious studies, psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University and the author of On the Pleasures of Owning Persons","url":"https://time.com/author/volney-gay/","worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/"}}] ```