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THE FACULTY

 

 

Recent Faculty Publications and Honors  

BARBARA AMBROS, Ph.D.  (Harvard University, 2002)

Specialization: Japanese Religions; Religion in East Asia; East Asian Buddhism
Research Interests:  Pilgrimage and Sacred Space in Japan; Shinto; Ethnicity and Religion in Asian Diaspora Communities in Japan
contact: bambros @email.unc.edu

YAAKOV S. ARIEL, Ph.D. (University of Chicago, 1986)

Specialization: Religion in America; American Judaism; Jewish-Christian Relationship
Research Interests:  Evangelicals and Jews; The Jewish Renewal Movement; Jewish New Religious Movements; Christianity and Israel
contact: yariel@email.unc.edu

BART D. EHRMAN, Ph.D. (Princeton Theological Seminary, 1985);

Specialization:  New Testament; Early Christianity
Research Interests:  New Testament interpretation; Apostolic Fathers; Early Christian Apocrypha; Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christianity; New Testament Textual Criticism
contact: behrman@email.unc.edu

CARL W. ERNST, Ph.D. (Harvard University, 1981);

Specialization: Islam in South Asia; Sufism
contact: cernst@email.unc.edu

GREG SCHMIDT GOERING,Th.D. (Harvard Divinity School, 2006)

Specialization: Hebrew Bible; Second Temple Judaism
Research Interests: nature and revelation in Jewish wisdom literature; Jewish religious practices in the Second Temple Period; Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation; ethnicity and religious identity in antiquity
contact: goering@email.unc.edu

PETER IVER KAUFMAN, Ph.D. (University of Chicago, 1975);

Specialization: Patristic, Medieval and Reformation Studies
contact: pkaufman@email.unc.edu

LAUREN G. LEVE, PhD,  (Princeton 1999)

Specialization:  Religion and Culture, Ethnography of Religion, Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia
Research Interests:  Personhood and Identity; Gender and Feminist Theory; Globalism, Nationalism and Postcoloniality; Anthropology of Religion; South Asia and Nepal
contact: leve@email.unc.edu

LAURIE MAFFLY-KIPP, Ph.D. (Yale University, 1990);

Specialization:  American Religious History
Research Interests:  African-American Religion; Ethnicity, Race and Religion; Religious and Cultural History of the American West
contact: maffly@email.unc.edu

JODI MAGNESS, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania, 1989);

Specialization:  Classical Archaeology
Research Interests:  Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic pottery of Palestine; Roman military equipment; the archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls; and ancient synagogues
contact: magness@email.unc.edu


ZLATKO PLESE, Ph.D. (Yale University, 1996);          

Specialization: Classical Languages and Literature
Research Interests: Gnosticism and Manichaeism; Hellenistic religion(s),philosophy,and rhetoric; Plutarch and Platonism; Coptic language and literature
contact: plese@email.unc.edu

RANDALL G. STYERS, J.D., Ph.D. (Yale Law School, 1984; Duke University, 1997)

Specialization:Religion and Culture; Modern Western Religious Thought
Research Interests: Contemporary Critical Thought; Religion and Magic; Religion and Law; Gender Theory
contact: rstyers@email.unc.edu

THOMAS A. TWEED, Ph.D. (Stanford University, 1989);

Specialization:  American Religions; Religion and Culture
Research Interests:  Catholicism in America; Asian Religions in America, Religion and Transnationalism; Religion and Place; Method and Theory in the Study of Religion
contact: tatweed@email.unc.edu

RUEL W. TYSON, JR. (Yale University, B.D., 1957; Manchester, Chicago, Oxford);

Specialization:  History of Social Thought; Theories of Religion and Culture; Ethnography and the Rhetoric of Religion
Research Interests:  Symbol and Allegory in the Ritual Practices of the Blue Ridge Primitive Baptists; the epistemology and rhetoric of ethnographic practices
contact: tyson@email.unc.edu

Emeriti

WILLIAM J. PECK, Ph.D. (Harvard University, 1962); EMERITUS

Specialization: Modern Western Religious Thought; Psychology of Religion
contact: wpeck@email.unc.edu

JAMES H. SANFORD, Ph.D. (Harvard University, 1972); EMERITUS

Specialization: Far Eastern Religions
Research Interests: Tantric Buddhism in China and Japan; Buddhist Poetry; Literature associated with the Taoist Inner Alchemy Tradition
contact: jhsanfor@email.unc.edu

JACK M. SASSON, Ph.D. (Brandeis University, 1966); EMERITUS

Specialization: Ancient Near East
Research Interests: Old Babylonian archives from Mari and Hebrew narratives
contact: jsasson@email.unc.edu

JOHN VAN SETERS, Ph.D; D.Theol h.c. (Yale University, 1965; University of Lausanne, 1999) EMERITUS;

Specialization:  Hebrew Bible; Ancient Near East
Research Interests:  Pentateuchal studies; history of law; ancient historiography; history of biblical scholarship
contact: john.vanseters@sympatico.ca

The Staff

Hope Toscher, Administrative Assistant and Office Manager, Saunders 125E, 962-5668
contact: toscher@email.unc.edu

Cathy Ashworth, Department Secretary, Saunders 125, 962-5666
contact: epresley@email.unc.edu


Myra Quick, Program Assistant and Registrar, Saunders 125D, 962-5667
contact: quick@email.unc.edu

The Department of Religious Studies
125 Saunders Hall, CB# 3225
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3225

Phone: (919) 962-5666
Fax: (919) 962-1567

Chair: Bart Ehrman, (919) 962-3940

For Undergraduate Admissions, Please Contact Either:
Professor Jodi Magness- Director of Undergraduate Studies
Ms. Myra Quick - Religious Studies Department Registrar

For Graduate Admissions, Please Contact Either:
Ms. Myra Quick - Religious Studies Department Registrar
Professor Laurie Maffly-Kipp - Director of Graduate Studies

For the Religious Studies Webmaster, Please Contact:
Religious Studies Webmaster

 

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