Alumni

Alphabetical by last name.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y Z
Ryan J. T. Adams
  • BA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2001.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: East Asia-Chinese Religions, Religion and Culture, History of Religions, Anthropology of Religions, Philosophy of Religion, Technologies of the Self/Body, Sacred Space, Charisma.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Falun Gong: Transforming Tradition, Self, and Society.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Transformers: Chinese Self-Cultivation Traditions in Taiwan’s Falun Gong.”
  • Current Employment: Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Religion, Western Michigan University.
Joseph A. Adler
  • BA, Biology, University of Rochester, 1970.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1977.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1984.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Chinese Religions, Confucianism, Buddhism, Ancient Mediterranean.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Divination and Philosophy: Chu His’s Understanding of the I-ching.”
  • Current Employment: Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and Asian Studies, Kenyon College.
Munther H. Al-Sabbagh
  • BA, Business Administration, Clark University, 1998.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2011.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic Studies, Medieval Middle East History.
  • Current Studies: PhD student in UC Santa Barbara History Department
Jessica Andruss
  • AB, Religion and Modern Languages & Literatures, Kenyon College, 2001.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • MA, Near Eastern Languages, The Ohio State University
  • PhD, University of Chicago
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Medieval Spain and North Africa, Sephardim and Sephardic Diaspora, Hebrew and Arabic Convivencia Literature, Vernacularism, Alfonso X, Medieval Biblical/History Projects, Creativity.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Nazirite Embodiment of Holiness: A Conditional Vow of Consecrated Hair.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Mellon Fellow, Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures, University of Virginia
Courtney Applewhite
  • Area:  Death ritual and grief; North American Religions; secularism and secular people; religion and science; ritual studies
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2023
  • Dissertation: From Dust to Compost: Eco-Disposition Methods and a Changing Religious Landscape in the United States
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2019
  • MA Thesis: Institutionalized Individuality: Death Practices and Afterlife Beliefs in Unity Church, Unitarian Universalism, and Spiritualism in Santa Barbara
Jon Armajani
  • BA, Philosophy, Oberlin College, 1988.
  • MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1991.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1999.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islam, Theory and Method for the Study of Religion, and Philosophy of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Kurds, Turks, Nestorians, and Westerners: An Analysis of Religious, Political, and Ethnic Turmoils in Nineteenth Century Kurdistan.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Islamic Thought in the West: Sacred Texts, Islamic History, and Visions of Islam in a Transnational Age.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor, Department of Theology, College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University.
Natalie Avalos
  • BA, Interdisciplinary Studies in Anthropology, Psychology, and Religious Studies, UC Berkeley, 2006.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2010.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2015.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Indigenous Religious Traditions of the Americas and Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, Chicano Religions, Indigenous Ontology, Healing Historical Trauma, Religiosity as Social Justice, Transnational Religiosity, Race and Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Postcolonial Healing: Indigenous Concepts of Power and Strategies for Self-Determination.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Interdependence as a Lifeway: Decolonization and Resistance in Transnational Native American and Tibetan Communities.”
  • Current Employment: Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Ethnic Studies Department, University of Colorado at Boulder
  • Transitioning to a tenure-track position in the same dept. next academic year (2020-21)
Michael Barber
  • BA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • JD, Santa Barbara College of Law, 1980.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2015.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: East Asian and South Asian Religious Traditions, Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Language.
Steven Barrie-Anthony
  • BA, Religious Studies, Occidental College, 2004.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2016.
  • PsyD, Psychoanalysis, Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 2021.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religion and Spirituality, Religious Experience, Religion and the Media, Religion and Technology, Sociology of Religion, Psychology of Religion, Religion and Medicine/Healing, Religion and Pluralism, Secularism and the Sacred.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Treating Anomic Illness: Toward a Dialogue with Tibetan Buddhist Medicine, and a Mind-Body-World-Transcendent Approach.”
  • Title of Doctoral (PhD) Dissertation: “’A Chain of Internal Connections’: The Baba-Lovers and Individualism, Community, and Public Life.”
  • Title of Doctoral (PsyD) Dissertation: “The Sacralization of the Intimate Edge: Heeding Spirituality’s Call for Mutual Experience within Clinical Work.”
  • Current Employment and Affiliations: Psychoanalyst in private practice (http://www.drstevenba.com); Research Associate, UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion; Volunteer Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCSF Medical School.
Molly H. Bassett
  • BA, Classical Studies & Spanish, Marshall University, 2001.
  • MDiv, Harvard University, 2004.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Mesoamerican Religions (Mexica-Aztec).
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Fate of Earthly Things: Mexica-Aztec Deities and their Representation.”
  • Current employment: Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Georgia State University
Elliott Bazzano
  • BA, Religious Studies, Humboldt State University, 2005.
  • MA, Religion/Islamic Studies, Duke University, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic Studies, Sufism, Qur’anic Studies, Pluralism, Ethics, Mysticism, Identity, Pedagogy, Narratives, Arabic, Persian.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Qur’an According to Ibn Taymiyya: Redefining Exegetical Authority in the Islamic Tradition.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, LeMoyne College.
Martin Becker
Martin Becker
Emily Bennett

MA: Religious Studies in Religions of the Americas, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2022

BA: Honors Major in Religious Studies and Minor in Asian Studies, Lewis and Clark College, 2019

Stephen C. Berkwitz
  • BA, University of Vermont, 1991.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1994.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1999.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Buddhism, Religions of India, Pali, Sanskrit, Critical Theory.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Reforming Tradition and Forming Identity in Twentieth-Century Sri Lankan Buddhism.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Ethics of Buddhist History: A Study of the Pali and Sinhala Thupavamsa-s.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of Religious Studies, Missouri State University.
Evan Berry
  • BA, Religion, The Colorado College, 1999.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2008.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Religion and Nature, Contemporary Forms of Spirituality, Implicit Religion, Religion in American Culture and in the Modern West, Philosophy of Religion, Sociology of Religion, Sacred Space.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Devoted to Nature: Environmental Spirituality and Religious Change in the Pacific Northwest.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religion, American University.
Anna Bigelow
  • BA, Religious Studies and English Literature, Smith College, 1991.
  • MA, Religious Studies, Columbia University, 1995.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2004.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islam in South Asia.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Sharing Saints, Shrines, and Stories: Practicing Pluralism in Punjab.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor of Religion, North Carolina State University
Vincent F. Biondo, III
  • BA, Religious Studies, UC San Diego, 1995.
  • MA, Liberal Arts, San Diego State University, 1998.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religions, Islam.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: Islam and Public Space in the U.S. and Britain: Politics, Pluralism, Schools, and Mosques.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies, Humboldt State University.
Alison Bjerke
  • BA, Stanford University, 2002.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Christian Thought, Religion and Modern Thought, Social and Critical Theories of Religion, Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Theory.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Hegel and the Love of the Concept.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “William of Ockham and the Opening of Phenomenology.”
Zeff Bjerken
  • BA, Religion, Reed College, 1986.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1989.
  • MA, Buddhist Studies, University of Michigan, 1993.
  • PhD, Buddhist Studies, University of Michigan, 2001.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Comparative Philosophy of Religion, Cross-Cultural Hermeneutics, South Asian Religions.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis (UCSB): “Toward a Comparative Study of Time in the Philosophies of Hartshorne and Nagarjuna.”
  • Title of Master’s Thesis (University of Michigan): “The Ties That Bind: The Religio-Political Manipulation of a Tibetan Royal Genealogical Myth.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Mirror-work of Tibetan Religious Historians: A Comparison of Buddhist and Bon Historiography.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies, College of Charleston.
Chase Bossart
  • BA, Philosophy and Religion, Colgate University, 1992.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Indian Religions, Yoga, Chinese Buddhism.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Cessation of Cessation: Re-Envisioning Patañjali’s Definition of Yoga and Vyāsa’s Commentary on Sūtras I.2, I.3, and I.4.”
  • Current Employment: Director of Therapy & Education, Healing Yoga Foundation,
    San Francisco.
Drew Bourn
  • BA, Religion, Earlham College, 1991.
  • MTS, World Religions, Harvard, 2000.
  • MLIS, Archives Management, Simmons College, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Immigration and Transnationalism, Islam and Asian Religions in the United States, Theories of Consciousness, Subjectivity, Subject-Formation.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Secularizing San Francisco: Religion, Prostitution, and Public Policy, 1848-1917.”
  • Current Employment: Curator, Stanford Medical History Center.
Marcy Braverman-Goldstein
  • BA, University of Rochester, 1993.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1996.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Hinduism, Kashmir Shaivism, Mysticism, Hinduism in America, Psychology of Religion, Religion and Madness, Sanskrit, Yoga Traditions.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Two Reflections in the Mirror: Pratyabhijna and Lacanian Discourses on Specular Identity Construction.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Possession, Immersion, and the Intoxicated Madnesses of Devotion in Hindu Traditions.”
  • Current Employment: Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Davidson College.
  • Founder and Instructor at Sanskrit Revolution: http://www.sanskritrevolution.com
Jeffrey Brodd
  • BA, Mathematics and Philosophy, St. Olaf College, 1982.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1988.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1992.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity, Comparative Philosophy of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Gnostic Morality: Asceticism, Libertinism, and the ‘Acosmic’ Theory of Hans Jonas.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Apostate, Philo-Semite, or Syncretic Neoplatonist?  Julian’s Intentions for Rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple.”
  • Current Employment: Chair of Humanities & Religious Studies, California State University, Sacramento.

 

James Brousseau
A. Najib Burhani
  • BA, Theology & Philosophy, UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta, Indonesia, 1999.
  • MA, Islamic Studies, Universiteit Leiden, the Netherlands, 2004.
  • MSc, Social Research Methods and Statistics, University of Manchester, UK, 2007.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Area of Study at UCSB: Religious Minorities in Islam, Sufism, Interpretations of the Qur’an, Islam in Southeast Asia.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “When Muslims Are Not Muslims: The Ahmadiyya Community and the Discourse on Heresy in Indonesia.”
  • Current Employment: Researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta.
Richard J. Callahan, Jr.
  • BA, Religious Studies and Philosophy, Connecticut College, 1990.
  • MA, Folk Studies, Western Kentucky University, 1993.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1995.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2002.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, Folk and Popular Religion in the United States, Cultural History of Religion, Sociology of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “‘No God in Common’: Religion, Culture, and Conflict in the Industrial Workers of the World.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Working with Religion: Industrialization and Resistance in the Eastern Kentucky Coal Fields, 1910-1932.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor, Dept. of Religious Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia.
Alex Catanese
  • BA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1997.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Buddhist Studies, Tibetan Religion and Culture, Ethnography.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Selling the Buddha: The Commodification of Buddhist Statues in Lhasa.”
Darryl V. Caterine
  • BA, Comparative Religion, and English and American Literature, Harvard University, 1986.
  • MDiv, World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 1989.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1997.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religion, History of Religions, Chicano/Latino Religions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Saints and Social Bodies: Socioreligious Narratives of Mother Maria Luisa Josefa and the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Le Moyne College.
William Chavez

Ph.D., UC Santa Barbara, 2022

David Chidester
  • BA, Religious Studies, California State University, Northridge, 1975.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1977.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1981.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and Culture, Christianity, North American Religion.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Word and Light: Perception and Symbolic Forms in the Augustinian Tradition.”
  • Current Employment: Chair of Religious Studies and Director of the Institute for Comparative Religion in Southern Africa, University of Cape Town.
Travis Chilcott
  • BA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2001.
  • MST, Study of Religion, Oxford University, 2002.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2011.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Hindu Devotional Traditions, Psychology/Cognitive Science of Religion, Religious Experience.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Divine Knowability in the Bhagavat-Sandarbha of Jīva Gosvāmin: An Analysis of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Epistemological Issues.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Transformative Path of Kṛṣṇa Bhakti: The Cognitive Dynamics of Religious Experiences in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Tradition.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Iowa State University.
Kerry San Chirico
  • BS, Political Science, Santa Clara University, 1992.
  • MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1999.
  • MSW, Rutgers University, Graduate School of Social Work, 2000.
  • MTh, Eastern Orthodox Theology and History, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 2002.
  • MA, Systematic Theology, Boston College, 2005.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Religions, Hinduism, Christianity, Global Christianity, Inter-Religious Encounter, Methodology in Comparative Religion, History of Religions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Between Christian and Hindu: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, Hindus, and the Negotiation of Devotion in the Banaras Region.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, University of Hawaii, Manoa.
Brian Clearwater
M.A., UC Santa Barbara
Julianne Cordero
  • BA, Anthropology and Native American Studies, The Evergreen State College, 1994.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Botanical Healing and American Spirituality, Religion and Ecology, Native American Religious Traditions, Religion in Western Civilization, Ancient European Religious and Medical Traditions, and Native American Linguistics.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Reciprocal Homeland: Toward an Ecology of Health, Community, and Ethnographic Method among the Contemporary Chumash.”
Suzanne Crawford
  • BA, Willamette University, 1995.
  • MA, Vanderbilt University, 1997.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Indian Religious Traditions, Women in Religion, Cross-Cultural Religion and Healthcare, Ethnic and Gender Diversity in Contemporary American Religious Life.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Body as Battleground: Health, Gender, and Embodiment among American Indian Communities of Washington State.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Religion and Culture, Pacific Lutheran University.
Elizabeth Currans
  • BA, English and Women’s Studies, Colorado State University, 1994.
  • MA, Folklore and Women’s Studies, University of Oregon, 1999.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, Performance Studies, Subjectivity, Embodiment, Political Belief, Contemporary American Religious Expression, Cultural Studies, Social Movements.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Performing Gender, Enacting Community: Women, Whiteness, and Belief in Contemporary Public Demonstrations.”
  • Current Employment: Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies, Eastern Michigan University.
Finbarr Curtis
  • BA, Columbia University, 1995.
  • MA, Vanderbilt University, 1999.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in America.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Speaking of the Nation: William Jennings Bryan, Al Smith, and the Idioms of American Populism.”
  • Current Employment: Instructor, Religious Studies, University of Alabama.
Lisle W. Dalton
  • BA, American Studies, Yale University, 1987.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1994.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1998.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, Religion and Science, Sociology of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “A Phrenologist’s Millennium: Religion, Science, and Progress in the Thought of Orson Squire Fowler.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Between the Enlightenment and Public Protestantism: Religion and the American Phrenological Movement.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Religious Studies, Hartwick College.
Laura Deutsch

MA, UC Santa Barbara 2022

William Dewey
Jonathan Dickstein

PhD, UC Santa Barbara, 2022

MA, Religious Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder

BA, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), University of Pennsylvania

Daigengna Duoer
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism in modern Northeast Asia; Buddhism and Colonialism; Buddhism and War; Transnational and Diasporic Buddhism; Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism in Taiwan; Religion in Manchukuo
  • Dissertation: “Buddhism Beyond the Nation and the Empire: Transnational Geluk Buddhism in Modern East and Inner Asia”
Abdulmecid Yasir Eksici
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2023
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic Law and Theology, Ethics, Philosophy of Law and Politics
  • Dissertation: “The Myth of Determinism. Sadr al-Sharia’s Defense of Human Agency”
Caleb Elfenbein
  • BA, Political Science, Vassar College, 1998.
  • MTS, Harvard University, 2001.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Traditions of Islam, Religion and Politics, Colonialism in the Middle East, Religion and Nationalism, Philosophy of Religion.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Differentiating Islam: Colonialism, Sayyid Qutb, and Religious Transformation in Modern Egypt.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Departments of History and Religious Studies, Grinnell College.
Mark Elmore
  • BA, Religious Studies, Geography, and Environmental Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1995.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder, 1999.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Religious Traditions, Hindu Tantra, Religion and Visual Culture, Philosophy of Religion, Approaches to the Study of Religion.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “States of Religion: Postcolonialism, Power, and the Formation of Himachal Pradesh.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Religious Studies, UC Davis.
Brett Esaki
  • BA, Classics, St. John’s College, 2002.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of South Carolina, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Babrara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Art and Religion, Asian American Religions, African American Religions, Indigenous Traditions, Spirituality, Popular culture, Sexuality, Poststructuralism, Ethnography of Religion.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Religious Silence in Japanese American Arts.”
  • Current Employment: “Religion, Race, and Discrimination” Postdoctoral Teaching Associate, Central Michigan University.
Natalie Fawcett
Martha L. Finch
  • BA, Religion, Syracuse University, 1988.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1993.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, Early New England Studies, Religion and the Body, Gender and Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “‘Bringing Down the Bodie’: Fast and Thanksgiving in Early New England.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Corporality and Orthodoxy in Early New England: Plymouth Colony, 1620-1692.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Missouri State University.
Nathan Fisher
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2019
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Jewish Studies, Cognitive Science of Religion, Contemplative Studies
  • Dissertation: “Nonlinear Path of Pathology? A Culturally Sensitive Complex Systems Approach to Meditation-Related Difficulties in Abrahamic Traditions”
  • Master’s Thesis: “Dark Nights and Nonlinear Paths in Western Abrahamic Contemplative Traditions”
Stephen Fleming
  • BA, History, Brigham Young University, 1999.
  • MA, History, California State University, Stanislaus, 2003.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Christianity, Religion in the Roman Empire, Religion in the Middle Ages, English Reformation, and Religion and Modernity (Enlightenment), Mormonism.
Chelsea Forer
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Indigenous Ways of Knowing; Indigenous Peoplehood; Religion and Law; Religious Freedom
David Fowler
Nathan French
PhD
  • BA, Religion, Centre College, 2006.
  • AM, Islamic Studies, Washington University in St. Louis, 2008.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic Law and Jurisprudence, Islamic Theology and Philosophy, Contemporary Islamic and Arab Intellectual History and Development, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of Violence, Internet Religious Communities, Secularization.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “And God Knows the Martyrs: Authority and Self, Suicide and Martyrdom in Jihadi-Salafi Jurisprudence.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Religion, Miami University.
Kathleen Garces-Foley
  • BA, Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 1994.
  • MA, Graduate Theological Union, 1997.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2004.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in America, Ethnicity, Immigration and Religion, Death and Dying.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Humans in Nature.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Crossing the Ethnic Divide.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor, Religious Studies, Marymount University.
Jovi Geraci
  • BA, University of New Mexico, 1998.
  • MTS, Harvard University, 2000.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in American Popular Culture, Religion in Media, Religion in Video Games, Early Christianity/New Testament, Languages.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Imagining the End: Apocalyptic Imagery in Visual Media.”
  • Current Employment: Lecturer, Manhattan College
Robert M. Geraci
  • BA, Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, 1999.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religions, Religion and Science, Religion and Art, History of Science.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Signaling Static: Artistic, Religious, and Scientific Truths in a Relational Ontology.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Cultural History of Religions and the Ethics of Progress: Building the Human in 20th Century Religion, Science, and Art.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College.
Samaneh Oladi Ghadikolaei
  • BA, English Translation and Literature, Azad University, Iran, 2003.
  • MA, Education, Tehran University, Iran, 2005.
  • MA, Global and International Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2008.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2015.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic Law and Jurisprudence, Religious Movements, Gender and Sexuality.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Women’s Involvement in Civil Society: Religious and Secular Activism in Perspective.”
Rahuldeep Singh Gill
  • BA, Religion, University of Rochester, 2002.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Sikhism.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Growing the Banyan Tree: Early Sikh Tradition in the Works of Bhai Gurdas Balla.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of Religion, California Lutheran University.
Annalise Glauz-Todrank
  • BA, World Religions, Human Rights, and the Arts, Hampshire College, 2000.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2010.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religious Conflict in Israel and in India, Jews in Modern Europe, Religion and Politics, Roles of Race and Gender within and between Religious Communities.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Negotiating Sacred Space in Jerusalem: The Role of Kiddush Ha-shem in the Politics of Mayor Lupolianksy.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Jewish Identity between ‘Religion’ and ‘Race’ in Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University.
Jenna Gray-Hildenbrand
  • BA, Religious Studies and Women’s Studies, Western Michigan University, 2000.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2004.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion, Politics, and the Law; Gender, Race, and Religion in the United States.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Negotiating Authority: The Criminalization of Religious Practice in the United States.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Middle Tennessee State University.
Robert L. Green
  • BA, Religious Studies, California State University, Bakersfield, 2003.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UCS Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2011.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Latin American History, Indigenous Religious History, African Diaspora.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Society of Jesus in the Philippines, 1590-1600.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Masters of Idolatry: Catholic Colonialism, Jesuit Conversionary Thought, and Indigenous Religious Traditions in the Spanish Pacific World, 1568-1672.”
  • Current Employment: Bishop James A. Healy Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross.
Lauren Horn Griffin
  • BA, English, University of Oklahoma, 2006.
  • MEd, University of Oklahoma, 2008.
  • MTS, Vanderbilt University, 2010.
  • MA, History, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Christianity, Early Modern Catholicism.
Aaron Gross
  • BA, Philosophy, Grinnell College, 1996.
  • MTS, Harvard Divinity School, 2002.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2010.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Cultural and Comparative History of Religions, Jewish Studies, Critical Theory, Animal Studies.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Question of the Animal and Religion: Dietary Practices, Ethics, and Subjectivity in Jewish Traditions.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Diego.
Ron Grove
  • AB, English & Education, Rutgers University, 1970.
  • EdM, Urban Education & English, Rutgers University, 1971.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1980.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1983.
  • MA, TESL, Northern Arizona University, 1990.
  • Subject of Master’s Thesis: Ancient Indic & Ancient Mediterranean Traditions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Canon and Community: Authority in the History of Religions.”
  • Current Employment: ESL Instructor at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.
Joel Gruber
PhD Program
  • BA, Religious Studies and Psychology, UC Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • MA, Buddhist Studies, Naropa University, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Tibetan Buddhism, Tantra, Buddhism in America.
Jennifer Lois Hahn
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2011
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religions in North America and Cognitive Science of Religion
  • Dissertation: “Something More and Other: Spirituality as a Means of Transforming the Self From Independent to Interdependent in Alcoholics Anonymous”
  • Master’s Thesis: ‘A “Spiritual Solution”: The Influence of Emmet Fox and New Thought on Alcoholics Anonymous’
Aaron Hahn Tapper
  • BA, The Johns Hopkins University, 1995.
  • MTS, Harvard Divinity School, 2000.
  • Certificate, Center for Arabic Studies Abroad, American University in Cairo, 2002.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Judaism, Islam, Modern Islamic Political Movements, Middle Eastern Politics, Non-violence, Conflict Resolution and Transformation, Languages (Biblical Hebrew, Modern Hebrew, Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic).
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “From Gaza to the Golan: Religious Nonviolence, Power, and the Politics of Interpretation.”
  • Current Employment: Mae and Benjamin Swig Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies, Director of Jewish Studies and Social Justice program, Theology & Religious Studies Department, University of San Francisco; Co-Executive Director and Founder, Abraham’s Vision
Grace Hanshaw
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and the Environment, Indigenous Religions, Understanding Life and Death in the climate crisis
Matthew Harris

PhD, UC Santa Barbara, 2022

Bradley Hawkins
  • BA, Islamic and Asian Studies, University of Toronto, 1974.
  • MA, South Asian History, University of Toronto, 1984.
  • MA, Religious Studies, Loyola University New Orleans, 1990.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1996.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Early South and Southeast Asian Religious History, Theravada Buddhism, Theories of Comparative Religious Studies, Psychology of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis (University of Toronto): “A Consideration of Some Theological and Psychological Theories of the ‘Image of God’ in the Human Psyche and Their Implications for the Understanding of the Christian Doctrine of the Communication of Grace.”
  • Title of Master’s Thesis (Loyola University): “The Unification of Nepal, 1740-1820.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Blending of Chinese, Indian, and Indigenous Religious Traditions in Eastern Mainland Southeast Asia from the Earliest Times to 1500 CE: Some New Perspectives on Religious Interaction.”
  • Current Employment: Lecturer, Department of Religious Studies, California State University, Long Beach.
Craig J. Hazen
  • BA, Biological Sciences, California State University, 1983.
  • Certificate, Institut International des Droits de l’Homme, Strasbourg 1982.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1989.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1996.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Science and Religion, American Religious History, New Religious Movements, Philosophy of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Science as Theological Absolute: Science and the Origin of Metaphysical Religion in Antebellum America.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Village Enlightenment in America: Science and the Emergence of New Religious Ideas, 1830-1860.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of Comparative Religion and Christian Apologetics, Graduate School, Biola University.
David Heeren
  • BA, Religious Studies and Cultural Anthropology, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2010.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2014.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and Popular Culture, Sport and Religion, American Religious History, Sociology of American Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Re-examining Feng Shui in America as Metaphysical Religiosity.”
Anna Hennessey
  • BA, Philosophy and Romance Language, New York University, 1997.
  • MA, Art History, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2011.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Chinese Religions, Art and Religion, Sacred Space, Philosophy of Religion, Art History and Critical Theory.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Troublesomeness of Metaphysicians: Subjectivity, Objectivity and Aesthetic Relativism.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: Chinese Images of Body and Landscape: Visualization and Representation in the Religious Experience of Medieval China.”
  • Current Employment: Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, California State University, Fresno; Founder and Editor, visualizingbirth.org; Assistant Editor, Non-Religion and Secularity Research Network (NSRN)
Jamila Herman Gonzalez
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2023
  • Dissertation:  John of Patmos and the New Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation: A Midrashic Approach
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2000
  • MA Thesis:  Wissenschaft des Judentums and the Search for the Historical Jesus: The Debate between David Friedrich Strauss, Heinrich Graetz, and Abraham Geiger in the Nineteenth Century
Aysha Hidayatullah
  • BA, English/Women’s Studies, Emory University, 2001.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Feminist Theology, Feminist Re-interpretation of Islam, Women in Early Islamic History.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Mariyah the Copt: Gender, Sex, and Heritage in the Legacy of Muhammad’s Umm Walad.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Women Trustees of Allah: Methods, Limits, and Possibilities of ‘Feminist Theology’ in Islam.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, University of San Francisco.
Taylor Hines
  • BA, Religious Studies, Brown University, 2000.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History and Sociology of Religion in the United States; Religion and the Body, Illness, and Disability; Religion, Healing, and Medicine(s); Religion and Gender; Metaphysical/Esoteric Religion; Pentecostalism.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Selfless Desires: H. Emilie Cady and the Victorian New Thought Woman.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Shadows of Perfection: Illness, Disability, and Sin in American Religious Healing, from the Civil War to World War I.”
Dusty Hoesly
  • BA, Philosophy and English, Lewis & Clark College, 2002.
  • MAR, History of Christianity, Yale Divinity School, 2004.
  • MAT, Language Arts, Lewis & Clark College Graduate School, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2018.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in America, Sociology of Religion, American Religious History, New Religious Movements, Secularism and Secularity, Globalization and Religion, Race and Religion, Religion in the American West.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “A Religion of Convenience: The Universal Life Church, Religious Freedom, Contemporary Weddings.”
  • Current Employment: Lecturer, Departments of Religious Studies and Asian American Studies, UC Santa Barbara.
Daniel P Hotary
PhD Program
  • BA, Sociology and Anthropology, Kalamazoo College, 2004.
  • MA, Humanities and Social Thought, New York University, 2006.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religions, Modern Judaism, Religion and Diaspora, Religion and Nationalism, Theories of Ritual, Constructions of Jewish Peoplehood, Sociology of Religion, American Jewish Communities
Joseph Howell
  • BA, Archaeology/Cultural Resource Management, Prescott College, 1996.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in Late Antiquity, Manichaeism, Heretical Groups, Kabbalah, Esoterica and “Fringe” Religions, Religious Experience.
Steven Hu

PhD, UC Santa Barbara, 2022

Victoria Imperioli
Julie Ingersoll
  • BA, Political Science, Rutgers College, 1983.
  • MA, American Religious History/European Intellectual History, George Washington University, 1990.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1997.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religion, Religion and Society, Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism.
  • Title of Master’s Theses: “Train Up a Child: A Study of Evangelical Views on Education.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Engendered Conflict: Feminism and Traditionalism in Late Twentieth-century Conservative Protestantism.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Religions Studies Program Coordinator, Department of Philosophy, University of North Florida.
Michael Ium
  • Area: Buddhist Studies, Tibetan Studies, South Asian Religions, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2023
  • Dissertation:  The Early History of Ganden Monastery and the Construction of the Geluk Tradition
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2018
  • MA Thesis:  Fake Truths: Jetsunpa, Gorampa, and Sectarian Polemics in Tibet
  • MA, Buddhist Studies, Maitripa College
Johari Jabir
  • BA, Music, Fontbonne University, 1991.
  • MDiv, Pacific School of Religion, 2003.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Race and Religion, Music and Religion, African American Religion.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “One More Valiant Soldier Here: Music, Masculinity, and Manhood in the Black Religious Imaginary.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Department of African American Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago.
Knut Axel Jacobsen
  • BA, History of Religions, Anthropology and Archeology, University of Bergen 1983.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1988.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1994.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: South Asian Religions, Hindu Studies, Sanskrit, Pali.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Prakṛti: the principle of matter in the Sāṃkhya and Yoga systems of religious thought”.
  • Current Employment: Professor, Study of Religions, University of Bergen.
Michael Jerryson
  • BA, Western Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1996.
  • MA, Languages and Cultures of Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2000.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2008.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Buddhist Violence, Thai Buddhism, Mongolian Buddhism, Performance Studies, Race Studies, Global Religions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Sacred Fury, Sacred Duty: Buddhist Monks in Southern Thailand.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Youngstown State University.
Linda G. Jones
  • BA, Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, 1984.
  • MA, Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, 1987.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1997.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2004.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religions, Medieval and Modern Islamic Traditions, Medieval Christian Culture, History of Muslim Spain, Arabic Literary Traditions, Comparative Religion: Islam and Christianity.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Santiago Matamoros and the Codex Calixtinus: Anti-Islamic Apocalypticism in Medieval Christian Spain.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Boundaries of Sin and Communal Identity: Muslim and Christian Preaching and the Transmission of Cultural Identity in Medieval Iberia and the Maghreb (12th to 15th Centuries).”
  • Current Employment: Juan de la Cierva Academic Researcher on Medieval Christian and Muslim Spain, Department of History, Instituto Milà i Fontanals, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Barcelona, Spain.
Corinne Kalota
  • BA, Liberal Studies and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Delaware, 2011.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2014.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic Studies, Women’s Studies, Feminist Theory, Contemporary Iran, Sexuality and Religion.
Noora Kamel
  • BA, Japanese, UC Los Angeles, 2011.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islam in America; Religion, Culture, and Identity Formation; Religion and Youth Culture/Movements (with focus on American Muslim youth).
Dennis Kelley
  • BA, Anthropology, California State University, Fresno, 1996.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2001.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Religion and Identity, Religion and the Subaltern Experience, American Indian Religious Traditions, Sociology of American Religious History, Myth and Symbol Theory.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The World is a Canoe: Tradition, Identity, and Symbolism in the Reprise of Chumash Religious Orientation.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Religion in Contemporary Native North America: Traditional Practices, Modern Identities.”
Jeffrey T. Kenney
  • BA, Philosophy, UC Santa Barbara, 1982.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1987.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1991.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islam, Sociology of Religion, History of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Emergence of the Khawarjj: Religion and the Social Order in Early Islam.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Heterodoxy and Culture: The Legacy of the Khawarij in Islamic History.”
  • Current Employment: University Professor and Professor of Religious Studies, Department of Religious Studies, DePauw University.
Scott M. Kenworthy
  • BA, Religious Studies and English, UC Santa Barbara, 1990.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1992.
  • MA, Theology, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1996.
  • PhD, History, Brandeis University, 2002.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religion, Early Christianity.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Justin Martyr’s Use of the Pauline Epistles.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Revival of Monasticism in Modern Russia: The Trinity-Sergius Lavra, 1825-1921.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor, Department of Comparative Religion, Miami University (Ohio).
Mimi Khuc
  • BA, Sociology, Minor in Religious Studies, University of Maryland College Park, 2003.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Asian American Religion and Culture, Race, Buddhism in the U.S., New Age, Women of Color Feminisms, Vietnamese American Studies.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “A Contentious Religious Recipe: Two Buddhisms, a New Age, Scholars, Vietnamese, and Race in America.”
  • Current Employment: Adjunct Faculty, Asian American Studies, University of Maryland College Park.
Euiyeon Kim
  • Area: Korean/Tibetan Buddhism; Influence of Mongol-Yuan Empire in the late Koryo Buddhism
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2023
  • BA, Buddhist Studies, University of Toronto
Shelby King
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara 2017
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in North America, New Religious Movements, Religion and Popular Culture, History of Religions, Secrecy and Religion in the Cold War
  • Dissertation: “Religious Dynamics of Secrecy in Cold War American Life”
  • Master’s Thesis: “Pythagoras or Charlatan”: Mystery-making in Gurdjieff’s 1924 Demonstrations
Michael Kinsella
Kolby Knight
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Areas of Study: Religions in North America; Catholic Studies; Media and Economy
  • Dissertation: “Father John Talbot Smith and the Making of Euro-American Catholicism”
  • M.Div.,  Wake Forest University School of Divinity
  • B.A., Mercer University
Photo of Adam Krug
Adam Krug

Adam’s dissertation focuses on The Seven Siddhiḥ Texts, an early corpus of Vajrayāna Buddhist texts that came to be known in Nepāl and Tibet as part of a larger canon of Indian works on ‘the great seal’ or mahāmudrā. In addition to providing text-critical historical analyses of these works, his dissertation focuses on larger issues such as a revaluation of demonology as an analytic paradigm for critical historical research in South Asian religions, inter-sectarian dynamics in the formulation of the Vajrayāna, and practical canonicity and curriculum in tantric Buddhist textual communities. His recently published work is titled “Pakpa’s Verses on Governance in Advice to Prince Jibik Temür: A Jewel Rosary,” published in a special issue of Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie on Kingship, Ritual, and Narrative in Tibet and the Surrounding Cultural Area by The French Institute of Asian Studies (École française d’Extrême-Orient)He has received two U.S. State Department research grants through the Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Fellowship program and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and is currently a lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Gary Laderman
  • BA, Psychology, California State University, Northridge, 1986.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1988.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1994.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, Death and Dying, History of Religions, Religion and Culture.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Study of Death: A Review of Academic Research on the Theme of Death and an Analysis of the Depiction of Death in Pre-Raphaelite Art.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation:  “Managing and Imagining the Dead: A Cultural History of Death in Nineteenth-Century America.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of American Religious History and Cultures, Emory University.
Patrick Lambelet
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist ethics
  • Dissertation: “Transgression, Conversion, Reformation: Atisa Dipamkara and Tantric Hermeneutics in the Later Propagation of Tibetan Buddhism”
Damian Lanahan-Kalish
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Areas of Study: American Religion, New Religious Movements, Science Fiction and Religion, Invented Religions
  • PhD Thesis: “Magick in the City of Angels: Navigating Reality Among Contemporary Magick Users in the Greater Los Angeles Area”
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2019
  • MA Thesis: “The Church of All Worlds: From an Invented Religion to a Religion of Invention”
Brett Land
J. Shawn Landres
  • BA, Religion, Columbia University, 1994.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1995.
  • M.St, Social Anthropology, Oxford University, 1997.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Sociology of Religion, Ethics, Nationalism and Religion, Religion and Culture.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Public Art as Sacred Space: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Asian-American Community Murals In Los Angeles”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation:  “Interstitial Religion:
    Approaches to the Study of Religion on the Middle Ground”
  • Current Employment: CEO & Director of Research, Jumpstart Labs; Commissioner, Los Angeles County Quality and Productivity Commission
Jacob A. Latham
  • BA, Art History and Religion, Swarthmore College, 1998.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2001.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Early Christianity and Ancient Mediterranean Traditional Religions.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “From Pagan Body to Christian Flesh: Clement of Alexandria’s Paidagogos.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Ritual Construction of Rome: Processions, Subjectivities, and the City of Rome from the Late Republic to Late Antiquity.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Jonathan H. X. Lee
  • BA, Religious Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Sociology, UC Riverside, 1999.
  • MA, Cultural Historical Studies of Religion, Graduate Theological Union, 2002.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Theories and Methods in the Study of Chinese Religions; Daoism; Religion, Sovereignty, Governmentality, Modernity, and the State in China; Material and Visual Religion; Pilgrimage and Sacred Space; Asian Diaspora in America, and Asian American Folklore.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Journey to the West: Tianhou in San Francisco.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Transnational Goddess on the Move: Meiguo Mazu’s Celestial Inspection Tour and Pilgrimage as Chinese American Culture Work and Vernacular Chinese Religion.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies Department, San Francisco State University.
Kjell O. Lejon
  • BTh, Lund University, Sweden, 1983.
  • MDiv, Church of Sweden Pastoral Institute (Lutheran), Lund, Sweden, 1984.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1986.
  • MTh, Church History, Lund University, Sweden, 1986.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1987.
  • ThD, Church History, Lund University, Sweden, 1988.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and Politics in the U.S., the New Christian Right Movement, Civil Religion, Religious Rhetoric by U.S. Presidents.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “In God We Trust.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “One Nation Under God?”
  • Current Employment: Professor and Chair, Religious Studies; Director of Research, Cultural Sciences Division; Linköping University, Sweden.
Gabriel Levy
  • BA, Anthropology and Religion, Dartmouth College, 1999.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2002.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007
  • Areas of Study at USCB: History of Religions, Judaism.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Jewish Tzaddiq.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Changing Channels: Biblical Prophecy, Writing, and Cognition.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology and Religious Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Robert (Bob) Lewis
  • BS, Math, Caltech, 1972.
  • MS, Computer Science, Caltech, 1981.
  • PhD, Electrical and Computer Engineering, UC Santa Barbara, 1995.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Ancient Judaism, Hebrew, Psychoanalysis in Relation to Religion.
  • Current Employment: Self-employed contractor, hardware and software.
Jeffrey S. Lidke
  • BA, Religious Studies, University of Colorado, 1990.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara 1996.
  • PhD, Religious Studise, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Tantra and Yoga, Ancient India, Comparative Esotericism in Asia, Sanskrit.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “When the Inside Becomes the Outside: A Critique of the Western Discourse of Duality, Based on an Analysis of Sadhana in the Trika-Kuala Saivism of Abhinavagupta.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Goddess Within and Beyond the Three Cities: Íåkta Tantra and the Paradox of Power in Nepåla-Maˆdala.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Religions, Berry College.
Jared R. Lindahl
  • BA, Religious Studies, Northern Arizona University, 2001.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UCS Santa Barbara, 2010.
  • Areas of Study at USCB:  Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Experimental Cognitive Science of Religion, Sacred Space, Contemplative Traditions, Monasticism, Asceticism, Mysticism, Comparative Study of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Beyond Wind and Breath: Reassessing Translations of Prana from Hindu Traditions.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Paths to Luminosity:  A Comparative Study of Ascetic and Contemplative Practices in Select Tibetan Buddhist and Greek Christian Traditions.”
  • Current Employer: Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Warren Wilson College.
Edward T. Linenthal
  • BA, Religious Studies and History, Western Michigan University, 1969.
  • MDiv, Pacific School of Religion, 1973.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1979.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in America, History of Religions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Warrior as a Religious Figure in America.”
  • Current Employment: Professor, Department of History; Adjunct Professor, Department of Religious Studies; Indiana University-Bloomington.
Emily Linthicum
  • BA, Religion, North Carolina State University, 2004.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in North America, Religion and Race, Religious Social Movements, Evangelical Christianity in the U.S., Religion and Politics, Religion and Discourse, Feminist Studies, Gender and Sexuality.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “A Sojourn in Feminism: Evangelical Feminism and Women’s Reproductive Rights in Post-American and Sojourners.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Reframing a Pandemic: HIV/AIDS and Conservative Evangelical Discourse in the United States.”
Mariano Lozano
  • BA, Religious Studies, CSU Northridge, 2012.
  • Areas of study at UCSB: Religion and Philosophy (Phenomenology, Existentialism, Hermeneutics), Buddhist Philosophy, Chinese Religions, Religion and Art/Cinema.
Phillip Lucas
  • BA, Honors History, Portland State University, 1988.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1990.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1992.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in America, Sociology of Religion, Christian Origins, World Religions, Method and Theory in Religious Studies.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The New Age Movement and the Pentecostal/Charismatic Revival: Distinct Yet Parallel Phases of a Fourth Great Awakening?”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “From New Age Millennium to Orthodox Restoration: The Religious Odyssey of a Postmodern Monastic Movement.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of Religious Studies, Stetson University.
David W. Machacek
  • BA, Theology, Texas Lutheran College, 1990.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1993.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1998.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Sociology of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Processes of Social Influence and the Development of Nontraditional Religiosity: Prior Socialization Reconsidered.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Soka Gakkai in America: Assimilation and Conversion.”
  • Current Employment: Financial Services Specialist, Independent Capital Management, Camarillo.
Patrick Mahaffey
  • BA, Religion, Western Michigan University, 1974.
  • MA, Education, Western Michigan University, 1977.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1983.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1988.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Philosophy of Religion, Indian Philosophy, Western Religious Thought, Religion in America.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Religious Pluralism and the Question of Truth: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Religious Worldviews.”
  • Current Employment: Core Faculty and Associate Chair, Mythological Studies Program, Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Christel J. Manning
  • BA, Economics, Tufts University, 1984.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1991.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1995.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Women in Religion, American Religion, Sociology of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Towards a Reconceptualization of Conversion to Syncretistic Religion: The Case of Modern American Paganism.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Coming to Terms with Feminism: A Study of Evangelical Protestant, Conservative Catholic, and Orthodox Jewish Women.”
  • Current Employment: Professor, Philosophy & Religious Studies, Sacred Heart University.
Soodeh Mansouri
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic Studies, Mediterranean & West Asian Religions, Religion and Culture
Rhonda Parks Manville
  • BA, Journalism, San Francisco State University, 1983.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in America, Metaphysical Religious Traditions, Women and Religion, Liberation Theology.
  • Current Employment: Director of Marketing, Seattle Humane Society.
Chloe Martinez
  • BA, Religion and English, Barnard College, 2001.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • MA, Creative Writing, Boston University, 2007.
  • MFA for Writers, Warren Wilson College, 2009.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Hinduism, Punjab/Rajasthan, Sikh Traditions, Devotional Poetry in South Asia, Bhakti Traditions, Religion and Poetry.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Vrsnis and Other Triads: An Iconographic Genealogy?”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Searching Self: Religious Autobiography in Pre-Colonial South Asia.”
  • Current Employment: Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion, Haverford College.
Tomoko Masuzawa
  • BA, International Christian University, 1975.
  • MA, Religious Studies, Yale University, 1979.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1985.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Discourses of Religion, History of Human Sciences, Modern European Intellectual History.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Haunted House of Meaning: Tradition, or the Management of the Sacred Past in Durkheim, Habermas, Benjamin.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of History and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan.
Eric Michael Mazur
  • BA, Religious Studies, University of Virginia, 1987.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of Virginia, 1989.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1997.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “‘We hold these truths…’: The Effect of Constitutional Authority on Religious Minorities.”
  • Current Employment: Gloria & David Furman Professor of Judaic Studies, Professor of Religious Studies, Director of American Studies, Virginia Wesleyan College.
Nancy McCagney
  • BA, Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1965.
  • MA, Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1971.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1984.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1991.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Indian Buddhist Philosophy, Philosophies and Religions of India.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “On the Circularity of Descartes’ Argument for the Existence of God.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Nāgārjuna Then and Now.”
  • Retired, Department of Philosophy, University of Delaware. Deceased, 2013.
Photo of Caleb McCarthy
Caleb McCarthy
  • BA, History and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Utah, 2007.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2011.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islam, Religion and Culture.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Samuel Zwemer and the American Study of Islam.”
Kathryn T. McClymond
  • BA, Harvard University, 1982.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1995.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1999.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Hinduism, Judaism, Comparative Study of Religion, Religion and Literature.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Interpreting the Agnicayana: An Assessment of Current Vedic Ritual Studies.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “In the Matter of Sacrifice: A Polythetic Approach to Sacrificial Ritual.”
  • Current Employment: Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies, Georgia State University.
Andrea McComb
  • BA, Comparative Religious Studies, Hampshire College, 2003.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions, Chican@ and Latin@ Religious Traditions, Native and Christian Interactions in North America.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Universalism and Relativism in the Study of Religion: Linguistic Relativity and its Implications for Indigenous Theories.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Religion and Power among the Eastern Pueblos of New Mexico: Patron Saint’s Feast Days as Sites of Adaptation and Continuity within Colonial and National Contexts.”
  • Current Employment: Lecturer and Undergraduate Adviser, Religious Studies Program, University of Arizona.
David McConeghy
  • BA, Religious Studies, Duke University, 2003.
  • MA, Comparative Religion, Miami University, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Sacred Space and Spatial Theory, American Religious History, Religion in the American West, Late 20th Century Evangelicalism.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Geographies of Prayer: Place and Religion in Modern America.”
  • Current Employment: Adjunct Instructor, Chapman University; private tutor.
Lucas McCracken
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2023
  • Dissertation: Christianity’s Addiction: Voluntary Enslavement and the Paradox of the Will
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2021
  • MA Thesis: Endless Happiness: Confessions of a Recovering Addict
Nathan McGovern
  • BA, Religious Studies and Physics, Franklin and Marshall College, 2003.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Religions, Buddhism.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Brahmā Worship in Thailand: The Ērāwan Shrine in its Social and Historical Context.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Buddhists, Brahmans, and Buddhist Brahmans: Negotiating Identities in Indian Antiquity.”
  • Current Employment: Blakemore Fellow at the International Chinese Language Program, Taipei, Taiwan.
Mark McLaughlin
  • BA, Ancient Art History, California State University, Long Beach, 1995.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Religions, Sanskrit, Sacred Space.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Embodied Nature of the Hindu Temple: Vedic Roots, Linga Installation, and the Minaksi-Sundaresvara Temple of Madurai.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Lord in the Temple, Lord in the Tomb: The Hindu Temple and Its Relationship to the Vākarī Samādhi Shrine Tradition.”
  • Current Employment: Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Denison University.
David L. McMahan
  • BA, Philosophy and Psychology, Kent State University, 1987.
  • MA, Religious Studies, Florida State University, 1991.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1998.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Buddhism in South Asia, Mahayana Buddhist Literature.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Empty Vision: Ocular Metaphor and Visionary Imagery in South Asian Mahayana Buddhism.”
  • Current Employment: Professor, Religious Studies, Franklin & Marshall College.
James D. McNamara
  • BA, Theology and Psychology, Georgetown University, 1974.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1976.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1985.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: South Asian Religions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Tīrtha-śrāddha at the Tristhalī: Pilgrimage to Perform the Hindu Ancestor Rituals.”
  • Current Employment: Executive Director, Development and Alumni Department, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Daniel Michon
  • BA, Political Science and Latin American Studies, Bowdoin College, 1992.
  • MEd, Secondary Education, John Carroll University, 1994.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2002.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Religions, Ancient India, Material Culture, Archaeology.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Mapping the World: The Mahabharata and the Hermeneutics of Place.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Material Matters: Archaeology, Numismatics, and Religion in Early Historic Punjab.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Claremont McKenna College.
Matt Miller
  • BA, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1994.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1999.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Metaphysical Religions.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “‘A Damn Good American’: William Kullgren, the Cultic Milieu, and the Problem of Unorthodoxy.”
  • Current Employment: Higher Education Reporter, Lansing State Journal, Lansing, Michigan.
John Lardas Modern
  • BA, Religious Studies, Princeton University, 1993.
  • MA, Comparative Religion, Miami University (Ohio), 1996.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, American Literature, Cultural History of Religion.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Specters of Moby-Dick: A Particular History of Cultural Metaphysics in America.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Franklin and Marshall College.
Rico G. Monge
  • BA, English, Pomona College, 1998.
  • MDiv, Eastern Christian Studies, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 2005.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Asceticism and Mysticism in Christianity and Islam, History of Christian Thought (Western and Eastern), Philosophy and Religion, Religion and Film/Literature.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Asceticism and the Affirmation of the World.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Diego.
Christopher Morales

PhD, UC Santa Barbara, 2022

Adam Morrison

Area: Religions in North America, Islamic Studies, Law and Religion

Christine Murphy
Nadia Nader
  • BA, English/American Literature and Civilization, Alexandria University in Egypt, 2000.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2004.
  • PhD, History, UC Santa Barbara, 2010.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Progressive Interpretations of the Quran in Relation to Human Rights and International Law, Islamic Law, Gender Issues in Islam, Religious Nationalism and the Rise of Political Islam, Religion and Violence, Pre-Islamic Arabic Literature and Civilization, Sufism in the Middle East.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Memory of the Mihna in a Haunted Time: Dogmatic Theology, Neo-Mu’tazilism and Islamic Legal Reform.”
  • Current Employment: PhD Student, History Department, UC Santa Barbara.
D. Keith Naylor
  • AB, English-Creative Writing, Stanford, 1971.
  • MA, Theology, Pacific School of Religion, 1975.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1987.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Liberal Protestant Campus Ministry: The Dilemma of Modernity.”
  • Current Employment: Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Occidental College.
Catherine Newell
  • BA, English and Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2002.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Modern Jewish Philosophy and History, History of Science and Religion, Biblical Hebrew, Theology and the Popular Imagination.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Infinite Space and the Popular Imagination.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Wheels of Titan: Faith, the Future, and the American Frontier.”
  • Current Employment:  Lecturer, Departments of English and Religious Studies, University of Miami.
Photo of Brendan Newlon
Brendan Newlon
Photo of Brendan Newlon
Brendan Newlon

Brendan Newlon is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research topics include: Traditional Islam, Islam in America and in China, Islamic Law, American Religions and Spirituality, East Asian Religions, History of Religions, and Theories of Religion. He has translated several works from Arabic and Chinese; these and other publications can be found on his Academia profile.

  • BA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islam in America, Islam in China, Islamic Law, American Religions and Spirituality, East Asian Religions, History of Religions, and Theories of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Hui Muslims and the Minzu Paradigm.”
Justin O’Jack
  • BA, History of Religion, UC Santa Cruz, 1993.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2002.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Chinese Religions; Chinese Religious Geography.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Auspicious Lights of the Golden Summit: Transforming the Religious Identity of a Sacred Mountain in Southwest China.”
  • Current Employment: Chief Representative of the University of Virginia China Office
Michael Oppenheim
  • BA, Philosophy, University of Southern California, 1968
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1971
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1976
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Modern Religious Thought, Judaism
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: Soren Kierkegaard and Franz
    Rosenzweig: The Movement
    from Philosophy to Religion
  • Current Employment: Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of
    Religions and Cultures, Concordia University, Montreal
Don Parris
  • Area:  Buddhist Studies
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara 2023
  • Juris Doctorate, UC Los Angeles
Tracy Pintchman
  • BA, Film Studies, Cornell University, 1984.
  • MA, Religious Studies, Boston University, 1987.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1992.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Hindu Studies, South Asian Religions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Deciphering the Goddess: The Feminine Principle in Brahmanical Hindu Cosmogony and Cosmology.”
  • Current Employment: Professor and Director of International Studies, Loyola University, Chicago.
Anna Pokazanyeva
  • BA, English and French Literature, Rutgers University, 2008.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2011.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2015.
  • Primary faculty advisor: Barbara Holdrege
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Religions, Religions in North America, Religion and Culture.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Sacrifices Gone Wild: Eschatology in the Sauptikaparvan of the Mahabharata.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Here Comes The Yogiman: Tales of Enlightenment and (Super)power with Particular Reference to the Life and Work of Paramahansa Yogananda”
  • Current Employment (as of 10/1/2015): Lecturer in the Religious Studies Program, Department of Philosophy, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Kelly Pollock
  • BA, Religious Studies, Northwestern University, 2000.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Nature Religion in the United States, Women and Religion, Theories of Sacred Space and Ritual.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “‘Between the Worlds’: Ritual Constructions of Sacred Space in Feminist Wicca.”
  • Current Employment: Dean of Students, Division of Social Sciences, University of Chicago.
Katherine Komenda Poole
  • BA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1991.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1995.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2001.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religions of South Asia.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “From Battle Queen to Mother: The Rise of Daksina Kalika in Bengal.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Sojourn Through Saffron: The Life of Sadhvi Uma Shri Bharati and the Rise of Hindutva Religion and Politics in India.”
  • Current Employment: Director, Shruti Institute for Vedic Arts.
Or Porath

M.A. East Asian Languages and Cultures, with Departmental Honors, 2012
Columbia University, New York, 2010-2012
Area of Specialization: Japanese History

Samuel C. Porter
  • BA, Religious Studies, University of Oregon, Eugene, 1977.
  • MDiv, Pacific School of Religion/Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, 1981.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1985.
  • PhD, Religion, Ethics & Society, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, 1996.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in America, Sociology of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Religious Studies and Educational Reform in the 1980s: A Critical Analysis of Five National Commissioned Reports on Higher Education.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “‘The Wisdom of the Owl at Dusk’: Cultural Conflict and Moral Disagreement Over the Oregon Forests.”

Current Employment: Staff Interviewer, University of Oregon Survey Research Laboratory; Research Associate, Policy Interactive

Ellen Posman
  • BA, Philosophy/Religion, Stanford University, 1992.
  • MTS, Harvard Divinity School, 1995.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2004.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Judaism, Southeast Asian and East Asian Buddhism, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, History of Religions/Comparative Methodology.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “There’s No Place Like Home: An Analysis of Exile in Judaism and Tibetan Buddhism.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor of Religion, Baldwin-Wallace University.
M. Alyson Prude
  • BA, Philosophy, Pomona College, 1998.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2005.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2011.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asia, Tibetan studies, Anthropology of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Celibate Women, Empty Gompas: Leadership, History, Education, and the Status of Buddhist Nunneries in Nepal.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Death, Gender, and Extraordinary Knowing: The Delog (‘das log) Tradition in Nepal and Eastern Tibet.”
  • Current Employment: Lecturer, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Maria del Rosario Jazmin Puignau
  • BA, Theology,  Universita Gregoriana di Roma, 2002.
  • BA, Political Science, University of the Republic, Uruguay, 2003.
  • MA, Political Strategy, National Institute for Higher Studies, Uruguay, 2004.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic and Christian Political Theology, Arabic, Islamic and Christian Philosophy, Qur’anic Studies.
Matt Recla
  • BA, History, Boise State University, 2000.
  • MA, History, Boise State University, 2005.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Early Christianity, Imperial and Late Antique Roman Empire, Martyrdom, Philosophy of Religion.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Imitiatio Christi: Reading Early Christian Martyrdom as Self-Formation.”
Samuel Reid
  • BA, History, UC Santa Barbara 2013
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara 2016
  • Areas of Study: American Religious History, History of Chaplaincy in the U.S. Military, Evangelical Christian Influences on U.S. Military Culture, Roles of Chaplains as Mental Health Specialists in the U.S. Military.
Stephen J. Reno
  • AB, St. John’s College, California.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1968.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1974.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Comparative Symbolism, History of Religions.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Act of Belief: An Analytical Study in Methodological Continuity.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Sacred Tree: A Phenomenological Study.”
  • Current Employment: Chancellor Emeritus, University System of New Hampshire.
Nathaniel Rich
  • BA, Philosophy, Texas A&M University, 2000.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2008.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism, South Asian Buddhism, South Asian Popular Hinduisms, Social/Cultural History of Asian Religions.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Biography of Rong zom chos kyi bzang po (ca. 1040) in the Dkar chag me tog phreng ba (Catalogue: A Flower Garland) of ‘Ju mi pham rnam rgyal (1846–1912).”
William Robert
Martha Smith Roberts
  • BA, Religious Studies and German, Missouri State University, 2002.
  • MA, Religious Studies, Missouri State University, 2005.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religions; Religious Pluralism; Race, Ethnicity, and Religion; Material Culture and Embodied Practice.
Matthew Robertson
Claire Robison
Peter M. Romaskiewicz
  • Area: Buddhist Studies, Medieval Chinese Religions, Sensory Studies, Composition and Rhetoric
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2022
  • Dissertation: Sacred Smells and Strange Scents: Olfactory Imagination in Medieval Chinese Religions
  • MA, Religious Studies, Columbia University, 2005
  • BA, Religious Studies, Rutgers University, 2003
Jeffrey C. Ruff
  • BA, Religious Studies, Antiquities, Anthropology, Southwest Missouri State University, 1990.
  • MA, History of Religions, Southwest Missouri State University, 1997.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2002.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: South Asian Tantra and Yoga.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “History, Text, and Context of the Yoga Upanisads.”
Mehnaz Sahibzada
  • BA, Religious Studies, University of Arizona, 1997.
  • MA, Middle East Studies, Univ. of Texas at Austin, 1999.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2004.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islam in America, Literature by Muslims in America.
  • Current Employment: Poet; English Teacher, Moorpark High School.
Judy D. Saltzman
  • BA, Philosophy, San Jose State University, 1963.
  • MA, Philosophy, UC Berkeley, 1965.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1973.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1977.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and Humanities, Comparative Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “A Critique of Alfred Schutz on Verstehen.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Paul Natorp’s Philosophy of Religion within the Marburg Neo-Kantian Tradition.”
  • Current Employment: Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Director of Religious Studies, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Kendra Sarna
  • BA, Philosophy, Northeastern University, 2007.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2014.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Political Islamic Movements, Politicization of Gender and Sexuality, Religious Conceptions of the Body, Religion and Law, Religion and Violence, Contemporary Issues Facing Muslim Communities in the U.S. and Europe, Islam in the Media.
Nathan Schneider
  • BA, Religious Studies, Brown, 2006.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2008.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and Science, Asian Religions.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “What Happens to Religion When It Is Biologized?”
  • Current Employment: Freelance Journalist.
Gregory Seton
  • BA, Film Studies, Wesleyan University, 1990.
  • MFA, Directing, American Film Institute, 1992.
  • MA, Buddhist Studies, Naropa University, 2005.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Buddhist Studies in Sanskrit and Tibetan.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “A Preliminary Study of the Meaning of Yoga in Saṅgharakṣa’s Yogācārabhūmi.”
  • Current Studies: Doctoral Candidate in Oriental Studies at Oxford University.
Ronald Sharrin
  • BA, Political Theory/Psychology, Reed College, 1967.
  • PhD, Clinical Psychology, CSPP, 1976.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Buddhism.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Some Steps Toward a Conceptual Framework for Psychotherapy Based on Buddhism.”
  • Current Employment: Self-employed Clinical Psychologist.
Ronald Sharrin
  • BA, Political Theory/Psychology, Reed College, 1967.
  • PhD, Clinical Psychology, CSPP, 1976.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Buddhism.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Some Steps Toward a Conceptual Framework for Psychotherapy Based on Buddhism.”
  • Current Employment: Self-employed Clinical Psychologist.
Sohaira Siddiqui
  • BA, Near Eastern Language and Civilizations, Political Science, English Literature, University of Washington, 2009.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2012.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2014.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Classical Islamic Law, Jurisprudence, Theology and Political Theory; Contemporary Islamic Intellectual History; Secularism; Modernity.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Evanescence of Perfection: Exploring the Lietmotif of Retroactive Minimalism in al-Juwaynī’s Political Thought.”
Elijah Siegler
  • BA, Comparative Religion, Harvard University, 1992.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1998.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, Religion and Culture, Chinese Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Marketing Lazaris: A Rational Choice Theory of Channeling.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Tao of America: The History and Practice of Daoism in North America.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor of American Religion, College of Charleston.
Megan Adamson Sijapati
  • BA, Religion, Colorado College, 1996.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2001.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: Islam in South Asia, Women and Religion, South Asian Religious Reform Movements, Religious Conflict and Identity, Postcolonial Studies, Mysticism, Religions of the Himalayan Hills, Islam in Nepal.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Shaping Muslim Identities: Alterity, Conflict, and Islamic Revival in Nepal.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor, Religious Studies, Gettysburg College.
John K. Simmons
  • BA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1982.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1984.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1987.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in America, Sociology of Religion, Religion and Culture.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Christian Science and American Culture.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Ascension of Annie Rix Militz and the Home(s) of Truth: Perfection Meets Paradise in Early 20th Century Los Angeles.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of Religious Studies and Chair, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Western Illinois University.

 

Rohit Singh
Kristy Slominski
  • BA, Religious Studies, Michigan State University, 2007.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2009.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2015.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, Sexuality & Religion, Women & Religion, Global Christianities.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “‘Do Everything’ but Prostitute: The History of Frances Willard and Fallen Women.”
Leslie Dorrough Smith
  • BA, Religious Studies, Southwest Missouri State University, 1997.
  • MA, Religious Studies, Southwest Missouri State University, 1999.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2010.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Gender, Protestant Fundamentalism, Critical/Social Theory, American Religions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Crafting Chaos: Concerned Women for America and the Rhetorical Production of Nationalist Power.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Avila University.
Tim Snediker
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Area of Study: Philosophy of Religion
  • Dissertation: “Figural Interpretation and the Logic of Supersession”
John Soboslai
  • BA, Philosophy, Central Connecticut State University, 2002.
  • MA, Religious Studies, Columbia University, 2004.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and the State, Religion and Violence, Martyrdom, Early Christianity, Theories of Religion.
Mark Soileau
  • BA, Philosophy, University of Houston, 1988.
  • MA, Social Anthropology, University of Ankara, 2002.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2002.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religions, Islam, Sufism, Saints.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Taking the Loma, Seeing the Dem: Ingestion and Digestion in the Bektashi Ritual Meal.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Humanist Mystics: Nationalism and the Commemoration of Saints in Turkey.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Mardin University (Turkey).
Aaron Sokoll
Varun Soni
  • BA, Religion, Tufts University, 1996.
  • MTS, Harvard Divinity School, 1999.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2001.
  • JD, UCLA School of Law, 2004.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, University of Cape Town, 2010.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religions of South Asia, Religion and Law, Religion and Popular Culture.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Music, Media, and Mysticism: The Pop-Propheticism of Bob Marley and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.”
  • Current Employment: Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California.
Saba Tova Soomekh
  • BA, Religious Studies, UC Berkeley, 1998.
  • MTS, Harvard Divinity School, 2001.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2008.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religions and Jewish Studies, Women and Religion, Iranian Jewish History.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women Between Religion and Culture.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Director, Jewish Studies Program, Loyola Marymount University.
Neal Spadafora
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2024
  • Areas of Study: Continental Philosophy, History and Theory of Mystical Literatures, Political Theology
SpearIt
  • BA, Philosophy, University of Houston, 1998.
  • MTS, Harvard Divinity School, 2000.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2006.
  • JD, UC Berkeley, 2009.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and Law, Criminal Justice, Social Theory and Law.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation:  “God Behind Bars: Race, Religion, and Revenge.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Saint Louis University School of Law.
Suzanne E. Stillman
  • BA, University of Arkansas, 1999.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2002.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Indian Hagiography, History of India, Religious Nationalism, Historiography, Languages (Hindi, Persian, Sanskrit).
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “The Saint as Model for Community: An Historical Analysis of the Hagiography of Mirabai.”
Stephanie Stillman-Spisak
  • BA, Religious Studies and Sociology, Colgate University, 1999.
  • MTS, Christianity and Culture, Harvard Divinity School, 2003.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2008.
  • Areas of Study at USCB: History of Religion in the U.S., Philosophy of Religion, Social and Cultural Theory, Formations of Subjectivity, Memory and Memorialization.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Remembering the Cruelest Month: The Network, Labor, and Haunting of Memories of Columbine.”
Taryn Sue

MA, UC Santa Barbara, 2022

Sarah McFarland Taylor
  • BA, Political Science, Brown University, 1990.
  • MA, Religion and Women’s Studies, Dartmouth College, 1993.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1999.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religion, Religion and Environment, Popular Culture, and Media Studies.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Sisters of Earth: Catholic Nuns Reinhabiting Religion at Genesis Farm.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Northwestern University
Ahmet Temel
  • BA, Religion, Istanbul University, 2004.
  • MA, Islamic Law, Marmara University, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islamic Studies, Islamic Law and Legal Theory, Qur’anic Studies, Hadith, Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Islamic History, Religious Identity and Secularism, State and Religion, Human Rights and Religion.
Morgane Thonnart
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2023
  • Areas of Study: Religion and Culture, Islamic Studies
  • Dissertation: “Community, Authority and Ethics through Halal Comedy: A Comic Imagery/Imaginary of American Islam”
Nancy Ramsey Tosh
  • BA, Art, Flagler College, 1989.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of South Florida, 1994.
  • MA, Sociology, University of South Florida, 1995.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: New Religions in the United States, Women and Religion, Sociology of Religion.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis (Religious Studies): “The Organization of Paganism: Pagan Networking in West Central Florida.”
  • Title of Master’s Thesis (Sociology): “Women Against Women: A Statistical Analysis of the Connection Between Religious Affiliation, Depth of Commitment and Gender Bias.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Fabulous Monsters: Identity Construction in Contemporary Paganism.”
  • Current Employment: Ventura College Community College District.
Esra Tunc

PhD, UC Santa Barbara, 2022

Masen Uliss
  • BA, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, Binghamton University, 1996.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2001.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, History of Religions, Aging and Retirement, Religion and Popular Culture, Race and Religion in the U.S., Contemporary Judaism.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Birth of a New Old Age: The Retirement Era in American Myth.”
Aaron Ullrey
Nesrin Unlu

MA, Religious Studies, New York University, 2011

BA, Faculty of Theology, Uludag University, 2008

Area: Islamic Studies, Religion and Law, Middle Eastern Studies

Steven Vertovec
  • BA, Religious Studies and Anthropology, University of Colorado, 1979.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1982.
  • DPhil, Social Anthropology, University of Oxford, 1988.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Sociology and Anthropology of Religion, Native American Traditions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Hinduism and Social Change in Village Trinidad.”
  • Current Employment: Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen; Honorary Joint Professor of Sociology and Ethnology, University of Göttingen.
Amy B. Voorhees
  • BA, Principia College, 1990.
  • MA, Women’s Studies, Ohio State University, 1993.
  • MA, Christian History, Graduate Theological Union, 2004.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2013.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religions, Christian Science, Religion and Gender.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Writing Revelation: Mary Baker Eddy and Her Early Editions of Science and Health, 1875-1891.”
  • Current Employment: American Congregational Association—Boston Athenaeum Fellow; White Mountains Institute at Plymouth State University.
Michael J. Walsh
  • BS, Political Studies, Sociology, and Religious Studies, University of Cape Town, 1990.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1994.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religion, Chinese Religions, Buddhism.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “A Tale of Many Cities: Disruptions of the Sacred in Eighth Century Chang’an.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Profiting the Treasure House: Monasteries and Land in Thirteenth Century China.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Religion, Vassar College.
Jeannette (Jinny) Webber
  • BA, English Literature, UC Santa Barbara, 1963.
  • MA, English Literature, UC Santa Barbara. 1965.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1986.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion and Literature.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Prophetic Truth of Doris Lessing: A Study of Canopus in Argos: Archives.”
  • Current Employment: Professor Emeritus, Santa Barbara City College; novelist.
Sarah Whedon
  • BA, Religious Studies & Theatre Studies, Wellesley College, 1999.
  • MA, Religious Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2001.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2007.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: American Religious History, Childhood & Religion, Gender & Religion, New Religious Movements.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Hands, Hearts, and Heads: Childhood and Esotericism in American Waldorf Education.”
  • Current Employment: Instructor, Department of Theology and Religious History, Cherry Hill Seminary.
Melissa M. Wilcox
  • BS, Biological Sciences, Stanford University, 1993.
  • MA, Women’s Studies in Religion, Claremont Graduate University, 1996.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Sociology of Religion, U.S. Religious History, History of Religions, Feminist and Gender Theory, Queer Theory.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “‘She Changes Everything She Touches’: The Confluence of Feminism and Wicca in the United States.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Two Roads Converged: Religion and Identity among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Christians.”
  • Current Employment: Associate Professor of Religion and Gender Studies, Whitman College.
Brian Wilson
  • BA, Medical Microbiology, Stanford University, 1982.
  • MA, Hispanic Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 1989.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1991.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1996.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Religions, American Religious History.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Heavenly Jerusalem in the Ascetical-Mystical Works of Renaissance Spain.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The New World’s Jerusalems: Franciscans, Puritans, and Sacred Space in the Colonial Americas, 1519-1820.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of Comparative Religion, Western Michigan University.
Matthew Wilson
Colleen Windham-Hughes
  • BA, Theater History and Dramatic Criticism, Whittier College, 1996.
  • MDiv, Claremont School of Theology, 2001.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2010.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Christian Thought, Theology.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “The Horizon of Birth.”
  • Current Employment: Assistant Professor of Religion, California Lutheran University.
Bruce Wollenberg
  • MA, Religious Studies, Indiana University, 1976.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1986.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religion in American History, Christian Social Ethics.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “John R. Commons and the Social Gospel.”
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Christian Social Thought in Great Britain Between the Wars.”
  • Current Employment: Pastor, St. Mark Church (ELCA), Charlottesville, Virginia
Lucas Wright

I am a PhD student in the German Programme in the Department of European Languages and Studies at the University of California, Irvine. I also hold an M.A. in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara, an M.A. in Theology, Philosophy, and Literature from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, and a B.A. with a concentration in Theology and Philosophy.

My current research focuses generally on modern Jewish thought and European history, thought, and culture – particularly 19th and 20th century Europe in relation to contemporary trends in continental philosophy and medieval and renaissance mysticism. My most recent publication, entitled Broken Mirrors, Distorted Reflections: Anthropomorphism and the Recovery of the Concrétude of Human Being in Rosenzweig, Heidegger, and Adorno (Forthcoming, Mohr Siebeck),*  examines divergences vis-à-vis the concept of anthropomorphism amongst three thinkers otherwise collectively known for, amongst other things, tarrying with the finitude of human being in contrast to certain allegedly reductive tendencies of German idealism and Romanticism.

*See: Lucas Scott Wright. “Broken Mirrors, Distorted Reflections: Anthropomorphism and the Recovery of the Concrétude of Human Being in Rosenzweig, Heidegger, and Adorno.” Humanity: An Endangered Idea? Ed. Ingolf Dalferth and Marlene Bloch. Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, Forthcoming).

Wendy M. Wright
  • BA, History, California State University at Los Angeles, 1972.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1976.
  • PhD, Interdisciplinary Studies (Religious Studies, History, Languages), UC Santa Barbara, 1983.
  • Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from DeSales University, PA, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: History of Christian Spirituality, Early Modern Catholicism.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Bond of Perfection, Jeanne de Chantal and Francois de Sales: A Study of the Nature of Spiritual Friendships between Men and Women in the Christian Contemplative Tradition.”
  • Current Employment: Professor & Kenefick Chair in the Humanities, Creighton University.
Michiko Yusa
  • BA, Social Sciences, International Christian University/Tokyo, 1974.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1977.
  • PhD, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1983.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Religious Anthropology, Philosophy of Religion, History and Philosophy of Buddhism, Christian Medieval Thinkers, Mysticism, Philosophy of Language, Upanishads, Indian Religious Traditions.
  • Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Persona originalis: ‘Jinkaku’ and ‘Personne’ according to the Philosophies of Nishida Kitarō and Jacques Maritain.”
  • Current Employment: Professor of Japanese and East Asian Studies, Department of Modern & Classical Languages and Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University.
Michelle Zimney
  • BA, International Relations, Stanford University, 1990.
  • MA, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 1999.
  • Certificate, Center for Arabic Study Abroad, American University in Cairo, 2000.
  • Areas of Study at UCSB: Islam, Modern Islamic Political Movements, Middle Eastern Politics, Algerian Civil War, Women and Gender in the Middle East, Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Human Rights.
  • Title of Master’s Thesis: “Ramadan’s Killing Fields: Sacrifice and National Struggle in Algeria.”