Core Faculty

Name/Title	Contact Info	Areas of Focus	Research Interests
Barbara Rossetti Ambros Professor, Department Chair	125C Carolina Hall bambros@email.unc.edu	Religions of Asia (Medieval and Early Modern Studies)	Religions in Japan; pilgrimage & sacred space; gender & religion; human-animal relationships; religion & the environment
Yaakov Ariel Professor	106 Carolina Hall yariel@email.unc.edu	Religion in the Americas (Jewish Studies, Christianity and Culture)	Christian-Jewish relations; missions & conversions; Judaism & Christianity in the modern world; Christian & Jewish new religious movements; Christianity & the Holy Land; Pietism & Evangelicalism
Brandon Bayne Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies	129 Carolina Hall bayne@unc.edu	Religion in the Americas (Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Christianity and Culture)	Colonial missions; early modern Catholicism; Native American Christianities; Latina/o & borderlands religion; martyrdom & relics
Jessica A. Boon Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies	113 Carolina Hall jboon@email.unc.edu	Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Religion and Culture, Christianity and Culture)	Mysticism; Marian and Passion-centered devotions; history of medicine; gender/sexuality/trans studies; disability studies; history of emotion
Youssef Carter Assistant Professor, Kenan Rifai Fellow in Islamic Studies	122 Carolina Hall youssefcarter@unc.edu	Islamic Studies	Sufism & Sufi movements; Islam in West Africa & United States; Religion in the African Diaspora; Black Atlantic & Decolonial Studies; Anthropology of Religion
Eden Consenstein Assistant Professor, Mary Noel and William M. Lamont Fellow in Religion, Media and Technology	125-B Carolina Hall edenc@ad.unc.edu	Religion and Culture Religion, Media, and Technology Religion in the Americas	Religion, Media, and Technology; History of Capitalism; Consumerism & Material Culture; New Religious Movements; Secularism Studies;
Andrea Dara Cooper Associate Professor, Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Scholar in Modern Jewish Thought and Culture	127 Carolina Hall adcooper@email.unc.edu	Religion and Culture (Jewish Studies)	Modern Jewish thought; gender studies; cultural theory; continental philosophy; critical animal studies
Abelardo de la Cruz Assistant Professor, Nahua Scholar	125F Carolina Hall dlacruz@unc.edu	Religion in the Americas Mesoamerican religions (Huasteca Veracruzana, Mexico) Mexican Indigenous Religions	Nahuatl language; Discourse analysis; Indigenous devotions; The sacred landscape; Ritual practices; Ethnography in Indigenous communities; Christian prayers translated into Nahuatl
Bart D. Ehrman James A. Gray Distinguished Professor	117 Carolina Hall behrman@email.unc.edu	Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Christianity and Culture)	New Testament interpretation; Apostolic Fathers; early Christian apocrypha; orthodoxy & heresy in early Christianity
Juliane Hammer Professor	126 Carolina Hall jhammer@email.unc.edu	Islamic Studies (Religion in the Americas)	Gender & sexuality in Islam; US Muslim communities; intersectionality, feminism, & Islam; theory & method in Islamic studies, Sufism, Islam & food; contemporary Qur’anic hermeneutics & religious practice
Joseph Lam Associate Professor	336 Dey Hall jclam@email.unc.edu	Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Jewish Studies)	Hebrew Bible in its ANE context; Hebrew & other Semitic languages; ritual in the ANE; writing in the ANE; metaphor in religious language
David Lambert Associate Professor	120 Carolina Hall dalambe@email.unc.edu	Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Jewish Studies)	Hebrew Bible in its ANE environment; hermeneutics & the history of biblical interpretation; late Second Temple Judaism; history of Jewish thought; history of the self; translation studies
Lauren G. Leve Associate Professor	121 Carolina Hall leve@email.unc.edu	Religions of Asia (Religion and Culture)	Ethnographic methods; Buddhism in South & SE Asia; gender & feminist theory; globalism, nationalism & postcoloniality; religions of South Asia & Nepal
Jodi Magness Kenan Distinguished Professor	223 Murphey Hall magness@email.unc.edu	Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Islamic Studies)	Early Judaism; archaeology of Palestine
Evyatar Marienberg Professor	112 Carolina Hall evyatarm@unc.edu	Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Jewish Studies, Ancient Mediterranean Religions, Christianity and Culture)	Rabbinic Judaism & Jewish law; rituals; contemporary Catholicism; regulation of sexuality; social history in the Middle Ages ; Religion in Europe
Hugo Méndez Associate Professor	125G Carolina Hall hmendez@email.unc.edu	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	New Testament; Reception and Cultural History of New Testament texts; Early and Late Antique Christianity; Greek
Todd Ramón Ochoa Professor	118 Carolina Hall tochoa@email.unc.edu	Religion in the Americas (Religion and Culture, Christianity and Culture)	African-inspired religions in Latin America and the Caribbean; Cuban-Kongo societies of affliction; materiality; critical ethnographic practice
Zlatko Pleše Professor	116 Carolina Hall plese@email.unc.edu	Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Christianity and Culture, Jewish Studies)	Gnosticism and Manichaeism; Hellenistic religions, philosophy & rhetoric; Plutarch & Platonism; Coptic language and literature
Randall G. Styers Associate Professor	128 Carolina Hall rstyers@unc.edu	Religion and Culture (Religion in the Americas, Christianity and Culture)	Modern Western religious thought; contemporary critical thought; religion and magic; religion and law; gender theory
Brendan Jamal Thornton Associate Professor	125F Carolina Hall Brendan_Thornton@unc.edu	Religion in the Americas (Religion and Culture, Christianity and Culture)	Caribbean and Latin America; Anthropology of Christianity; Afro-Creole Religions; Gender and Masculinity

Emeritus Faculty

Carl W. Ernst

David J. Halperin

Peter I. Kaufman

Laurie Maffly-Kipp

William J. Peck

Jack M. Sasson

John Van Seters