Jacquelene Brinton
Assistant Professor
Affiliated Faculty, Middle East Studies, Center for Global & International Studies

Office: 204 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785-864-7255
E-mail address: jbrinton@ku.edu
More info: Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D., University of Virginia, 2009

Jacquelene Brinton received both her M.A. and her Ph.D. in Religious Studies, with a specialty in Islamic Studies, from the University of Virginia. She is currently revising her dissertation as a monograph, which will be entitled: “Preaching Islamic Renewal: Shaykh Muhammad Mitwallī Sha’rāwī Scholar of the People.” Her main areas of interest within the discipline of Islamic Studies are: the role of the ‘ulamā’ in contemporary Islam, preaching, popular religion, and media and religion. Her research is focused on the role authoritative discourse plays in ensuring the continuity of religious traditions. Specifically, how television preaching has helped Egyptian ‘ulamā’ communicate religion as socially and historically relevant, and how technology aids this process. In her future research, Dr. Brinton plans to further examine the media transmission of religion, bringing together perspectives of production and reception. Dr. Brinton has published, or currently has articles forthcoming or under review, on the topics of: preaching and authority, visual piety and television preaching, and television reception and its effects on religious discourse.

William R. Lindsey
Associate Professor
Graduate Director

Office: 9 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-5582
E-mail address: brl@ku.edu

Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh, 2003

William Lindsey's primary research interest lies in analyzing how individuals and groups in Tokugawa Japan (1600-1867) constructed and contested social identity and power along lines of ritual and symbol made available through the bricolage of Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, kami worship, local traditions, and individual motivations.  

Timothy Miller
Professor

Office: 11 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-7263
E-mail address: tkansas@ku.edu
More info: Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D., University of Kansas, 1973

Timothy Miller's major research focus is the history of intentional communities in America, especially in the twentieth century. For his work in this area, Dr. Miller has been recognized by the Communal Studies Association as a distinguished scholar. Additional areas of research interest include American religious history, new and alternative religious movements in the United States, and religion in Kansas. Dr. Miller also coordinates the Religion in Kansas Oral History Project. His upcoming publications include The Encyclopedia of American Intentional Communities (Richard Couper Press), Out to Save the World: Spiritual and Visionary Communities in Modern Society (Ashgate Publishing), and the second edition of The Hippies and American Values (University of Tennessee Press).

Robert N. Minor
Professor Emeritus

E-mail address: rminor@ku.edu
Web site: http://www.people.ku.edu/~rminor/

Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1975

South Asian Religions; History of Religions Methodology; Religion and Gender

Robert Minor holds a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and has done research in India,Japan, Taiwan, the Near East, and Europe. Besides his interest in history of religions methodology, he concentrates on Indian religious thought and texts, and religion and gender. Among his publications are numerous articles and eight books, three of which were published both in the United States and India: Sri Aurobindo: The Perfect and the Good; Bhagavadgita: An Exegetical Commentary and Modern Indian Interpreters of the Bhagavadgita. His recent books include The Religious, the Spiritual, and the Secular: Auroville and Secular India (SUNY Press), Scared Straight: Why It's So Hard to Accept Gay People and Why It's So Hard to be Human (HumanityWorks!) and When Religion Is an Addiction (HumanityWorks!).

Paul Mirecki
Associate Professor

Office: 205 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-7252
E-mail address: pmirecki@ku.edu
More info: link

Th.D., Harvard University, 1986

Ancient Mediterranean religions, languages, and archaeology; Greek and Coptic papyrology.

Robert Shelton
Associate Professor

Office: 104 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-4665
E-mail address: rshelton@ku.edu
More info: link

Ph.D., Boston University, 1970

Religious Ethics; Peace and Conflict Studies; Religious Ethical Issues in Health Care

Daniel Stevenson
Professor, Department Chair

Office: 201 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-7258
E-mail address: dbsteve@ku.edu
More info: Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D., Columbia University, 1987

Daniel Stevenson's primary research interests include Buddhist ritual, literary/exegetical, and institutional practice in China, particularly as exercised in Tiantai and Pure Land circles; the construction of Buddhist values and identities in relation to the larger field of Chinese religious options, and the role that ritual plays therein.

Molly Zahn
Assistant Professor
Undergraduate Director

Office: 203 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-4609
E-mail address: mzahn@ku.edu
More info: Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2009

Molly Zahn received her PhD from the University of Notre Dame in 2009, and has also studied in Minnesota, Oxford (England), Tübingen (Germany), and Uppsala (Sweden). Her areas of interest include the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Near Eastern world, early Judaism (especially the Dead Sea Scrolls), early Christianity, and the historical relations between Christianity and Judaism. In her research, she focuses on the issue of interpretation: how religious communities read and renew their sacred traditions in light of their own experiences and circumstances. She has published several articles on scriptural interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in later layers of the Hebrew Bible. Her first book, Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts, was published by Brill in 2011.

Michael Zogry
Associate Professor
Director, Indigenous Studies Program

Office: 202 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-7257
E-mail address: mzogry@ku.edu
More info: Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D., University of California Santa Barbara, 2003

Michael J. Zogry’s primary research interests include Native American / First Nations religions, and theory and method in the study of religions with particular attention to the study of ritual, sport, play and games. His first book, Anetso, the Cherokee Ball Game: At the Center of Ceremony and Identity was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2010. It was one of the inaugural volumes in the series First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies. Zogry currently serves as co-chair of the Native Traditions in the Americas Program Unit, American Academy of Religion.

Aaron Ketchell
Lecturer

Office: 203 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-1141
E-mail address: aketch@ku.edu
More info: Curriculum Vitae

Aaron Ketchell researches and writes about American popular religion, or the extrainstitutional religious practices of often nonelite practitioners. He is especially interested in the commodification of such perspectives within the larger realm of tourism. His current project examines El Santuario de Chimayo, a healing shrine in Northern New Mexico, and the relationship between pilgrimage and secular tourism at the site.

Joshua Lollar
Lecturer

Office: 105 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-1141
E-mail address: j130l494@ku.edu
More info: Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D., Theology, University of Notre Dame

Joshua Lollar is a scholar of Eastern Christianity with specific interests in Greek and Syriac patristics, Byzantine culture and theology, and modern Orthodox Christian thought. He approaches the field of patristics from the perspective of intellectual and literary history and is particularly interested in the way early and medieval Christian practices reveal a distinctive aesthetics of paideia and self-formation and of how these ideas were transmitted and transformed from community to community. He studies the encounters between the ancient philosophical and literary traditions of Greece and the early and medieval Christian communities that received them, appropriated them, fought with them, and shaped them. Dr. Lollar is also interested in the phenomenon of early and medieval Christian poetry, hymnography, and rhetoric–and particularly the figure of the poet or rhetorician–as expressive of diverse ways of religious life amongst Greeks, Syrians, and Latins in the early and Medieval Christian traditions. He approaches ancient Christian poetry as Biblical interpretation, as theological expression, and as an aspect of the literary and liturgical formation of Christian identity.

Mark Nanos
Lecturer

Office: 203 Smith Hall
Office Phone: N/A
E-mail address: nanosm@ku.edu
Web site: http://www.marknanos.com/

Ph.D., University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 2000

Paul Zimdars-Swartz
Lecturer

Office: 5 Smith Hall
Office Phone: 785/864-3187
E-mail address: paulzs@ku.edu
More info: link

Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School, 1977

19th Century German Theology & Philosophy, German Reformation, Modern Theories of Religion

Paul Zimdars-Swartz received a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School in 1977. He has been teaching introductory courses in religion for several years and officially joined the faculty with a half-time appointment and more teaching responsibilities in the fall of 1994. His areas of specialization are nineteenth century German philosophy and theology, the German Reformation, and modern theories of religion.