Faculty

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Barbara Ambros Assistant Professor Ph.D., Harvard University, 2002
125-G Saunders Hall (919) 962-5666 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

Yaakov S. Ariel Professor Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1986
129 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3930 yariel@email.unc.edu	Biographical profile  Curriculum vitae
Field of specialization: Religion in the Americas
Research interests: Evangelicals and Jews; Jewish renewal; Jewish new religious movements; Christianity and Israel

Jonathan Boyarin Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Distinguished Professor Ph.D. New School for Social Research, 1984 J.D., Yale Law School, 1998
125F Saunders Hall (919) 962-3937 jboyarin@unc.edu	Biographical profile  Curriculum vitae
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

Bart D. Ehrman James A. Gray Distinguished Professor Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1985
117 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3940 behrman@email.unc.edu	Biographical profile  Curriculum vitae  Personal website
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

Carl W. Ernst Kenan Distinguished Professor Ph.D., Harvard University, 1981
107 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3924 cernst@email.unc.edu	Personal website
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

Lauren G. Leve Assistant Professor Ph.D., Princeton University, 1999
112 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3925 leve@email.unc.edu	Curriculum vitae
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

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp Associate Professor Ph.D., Yale University, 1990
128 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3927 maffly@email.unc.edu	Curriculum vitae
Field of specialization: Religion in the Americas
Research interests: African-American religion; ethnicity, race, and religion; religious and cultural history of the American West

Jodi Magness Kenan Distinguished Professor Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1989
121 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3928 magness@email.unc.edu	Biographical profile  Curriculum vitae  Yotvata Dig website
Field of specialization: Ancient Mediterranean Religions; Islamic Studies
Research interests: Early Judaism; archaeology of Palestine

Evyatar Marienberg E.J. and Sara Evans Assistant Professor of Jewish History and Culture Ph.D., Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2002
130 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3939 evyatarm@unc.edu	Biographical profile  Curriculum vitae  Personal website
Field of specialization: Medieval and Early Modern Studies; Religion and Culture
Research interests: Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish law; contemporary Catholicism; regulation of sexuality; social history in the Middle Ages; rituals; reception of Vatican II

Todd Ramón Ochoa Assistant Professor Ph.D., Columbia University, 2005
118 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3934 tochoa@email.unc.edu	Curriculum vitae
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

Zlatko Plese Associate Professor Ph.D., Yale University, 1996
116 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3936 plese@email.unc.edu	Biographical profile  Curriculum vitae
Field of specialization: Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Research interests: Gnosticism and Manichaeism; Hellenistic religions, philosophy,and rhetoric; Plutarch and Platonism; Coptic language and literature

Bennie H. Reynolds III Lecturer in Biblical Hebrew M.Div., Duke Divinity School, 2002; M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004
127 Saunders Hall (919) 843-9117 bhr3@email.unc.edu	Curriculum vitae
Field of specialization: Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Research interests: Hebrew Bible; Dead Sea Scrolls; Second Temple Judaism

Omid Safi Professor Ph.D., Duke University, 2000
120 Saunders Hall (919) 962-4890 omid@email.unc.edu	Curriculum vitae  Personal website
Field of specialization: Islamic Studies; Religions of Asia
Research interests: Progressive Islamic thought; social and intellectual history of pre-modern Islam; Islamic mysticism

Randall G. Styers Associate Professor J.D., Yale Law School, 1984; Ph.D., Duke University, 1997
106 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3938 rstyers@unc.edu	Curriculum vitae
Field of specialization: Religion and Culture
Research interests: Modern Western religious thought; contemporary critical thought; religion and magic; religion and law; gender theory

Ruel W. Tyson Professor B.D., Yale University, 1957; Manchester, Chicago, Oxford
113 Saunders Hall (919) 962-3935 tyson@email.unc.edu	Curriculum vitae
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