Faculty Alphabetically
List alphabetically
List by specialty field
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Barbara Rossetti Ambros
Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies
Ph.D., Harvard University, 2002
125 G Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3931
bambros@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religions of Asia
Research interests: East Asian Buddhism; Shinto; pilgrimage and sacred space in Japan; ethnicity and religion in Asian diaspora communities in Japan; human-animal relationships; East Asian religions and the environment
Yaakov Ariel 
Professor
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1986
129 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3930
yariel@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religion in the Americas
Research interests: Christian-Jewish relations in the modern era; missions and conversions; evangelicals and Jews; Jewish renewal; Jewish new religious movements; Christianity and Israel
Biographical profile
curriculum vitae
Brandon Bayne
Assistant Professor
Th.D., Harvard University, 2012
130 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-1268
bayne@unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religion in the Americas
Research interests: Colonial Missions and Encounter; Early Modern Global Catholicism; Native American Christianities; Latina/o and Borderlands Religion; Martyrdom, Relics, and Memorialization; World Christianity
Jessica A. Boon
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2004
113 Saunders Hall
(919) 843-3094
jboon@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Medieval and Early Modern Christianity
Research interests: Mysticism; religion in medieval and Golden Age Spain; Marian and Passion-centered devotions; body, suffering, and religion; history of science and spirituality; gender and sexuality
Jonathan Boyarin
Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Distinguished Professor
Ph.D. New School for Social Research, 1984
J.D., Yale Law School, 1998
125 F Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3937
jboyarin@unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religion and Culture
Research interests: Yiddish language and culture; Jewish cultural studies; Jewishness as it relates to comparative diasporas and nationalisms, critical theory, medieval and early modern Christianity
Biographical profile
Curriculum vitae
Bart D. Ehrman
James A. Gray Distinguished Professor
Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1985
117 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3940
behrman@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Research interests: New Testament interpretation; Apostolic Fathers; early Christian apocrypha; orthodoxy and heresy in early Christianity; New Testament textual criticism
Biographical profile
Curriculum vitae
Personal website
Personal Blog
Carl W. Ernst
Kenan Distinguished Professor
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1981
107 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3924
cernst@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Islamic Studies; Religions of Asia
Research interests: Sufism, with a focus on west and south Asia; Muslim interpretations of Hinduism; the Qur'an as literature
Personal website
Juliane Hammer
Assistant Professor and Kenan Rifai Fellow in Islamic Studies
Ph.D., Humboldt University, Berlin, 2001
122 Saunders Hall
(919) 843-7282
jhammer@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Islamic Studies
Research interests: American Muslims; gender discourses in American Muslim communities; Muslim women's and gender studies; theory and method in the study of Islam; Sufism and food; modern and contemporary Muslim approaches to the Qur'an; marriage, family, and sexuality in religions
Joseph Lam
Lecturer in Biblical Hebrew
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2012
130 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-5666
jclam@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Research interests: The Hebrew Bible in its ancient Near Eastern context; linguistic approaches to Biblical Hebrew; comparative Semitic grammar; ritual and cult in the ancient Near East; metaphor in religious language
David Lambert
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Harvard University, 2004
127 Saunders Hall
(919) 843-9117
dalambe@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Research interests: Hebrew Bible; ancient Israelite religious practices and society; late Second Temple Judaism; the history of biblical interpretation; development of religious terminology; Western notions of the self and interiority; history of Jewish thought
Lauren G. Leve
Associate Professor
Ph.D., Princeton University, 1999
112 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3925
leve@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religions of Asia; Religion and Culture
Research interests: Ethnographic methods and the ethnography of religion; Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia; personhood and identity; gender and feminist theory; globalism, nationalism, and postcoloniality; anthropology of religion; religions of South Asia and Nepal
Curriculum vitae
Kenneth "Ken" H. Lokensgard
Lecturer
Ph.D., Syracuse University, 2001
340 Davie Hall
(919) 843-3611
lokensga@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religions in the Americas
Research interests: Native North American religions, indigenous ontologies, religion and exchange theory, religion and indigenous material culture, religious diversity and freedom in North America, religion and field sports
Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp
Professor, Department Chair
Ph.D., Yale University, 1990
125 C Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3927
maffly@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religion in the Americas
Research interests: African-American religion; ethnicity, race, and religion; religious and cultural history of the American West; Mormonism
Curriculum vitae
Jodi Magness
Kenan Distinguished Professor
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1989
121 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3928
magness@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Ancient Mediterranean Religions; Islamic Studies
Research interests: Early Judaism; archaeology of Palestine
BIOGRAPHICAL pROFILE
CURRICULUM VITAE
Archaeological Dig in Israel
Evyatar Marienberg
Assistant Professor
E.J. and Sara Evans Fellow of Jewish History and Culture
Ph.D., Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2002
128 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3939
evyatarm@unc.edu
Field of specialization: Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Research interests: Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish law; contemporary Catholicism; regulation of sexuality; social history in the Middle Ages; rituals; reception of Vatican II
Biographical profile
Curriculum vitae
Personal website
Todd Ramón Ochoa
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Columbia University, 2005
118 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3934
tochoa@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religion in the Americas
Research interests: African-inspired religions in Latin America and the Caribbean; Cuban-Kongo societies of affliction; materiality; Creolization and racialization; critical ethnographic practice
Curriculum vitae
Zlatko Plese
Associate Professor, Director of the Minor in Christianity and Culture
Ph.D., Yale University, 1996
116 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3936
plese@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Research interests: Gnosticism and Manichaeism; Hellenistic religions, philosophy,and rhetoric; Plutarch and Platonism; Coptic language and literature
Biographical profile
Curriculum vitae
Omid Safi
Professor
Ph.D., Duke University, 2000
120 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-4890
omid@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Islamic Studies; Religions of Asia
Research interests: Progressive Islamic thought; social and intellectual history of pre-modern Islam; Islamic mysticism
Curriculum vitae
Personal website
Randall G. Styers
Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies
J.D., Yale Law School, 1984
Ph.D., Duke University, 1997
106 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-3938
rstyers@unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religion and Culture
Research interests: Modern Western religious thought; contemporary critical thought; religion and magic; religion and law; gender theory
Curriculum vitae
Brendan Jamal Thornton
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 2011
130 Saunders Hall
(919) 962-5666
Brendan_Thornton@unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religion in the Americas
Research interests: Caribbean and Latin America; comparative religion; Christianities; Pentecostalism; Afro-Creole religion; comparative Caribbean ethnology; identity politics; power and resistance; critical ethnography
Ruel W. Tyson
Adjunct Professor
Yale University, 1957
Manchester, Chicago, Oxford
209 Hyde Hall
(919) 962-3935
tyson@email.unc.edu
Field of specialization: Religion and Culture
Research interests: History of social thought; epistemology and rhetoric of ethnographic practices; symbol and allegory in the ritual practices of the Blue Ridge Primitive Baptists
Curriculum vitae