Associate Professor of Religion; Department Chair of Race, Ethnic, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Why did you choose to study religion?
In my experience, religion was where people asked complex questions about the human condition and how we strive to make the world a better place. Inside the Christian tradition, I was captivated by discussions about God’s identity and actions, and how commonplace words like “love” and “freedom” were filled with deep meaning and lasting impact among religious communities.
Associate Professor of Religion
Why do I research religion?
I chose to study religion because I became fascinated with the idea that religions have historical origins and develop over time – they don’t simply fall from heaven fully formed. I also came to see how thoroughly embedded religions are in cultures such as the U.S., especially in the arts.
Martin E. Marty Chair in Religion and the Academy; Associate Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies; Department Chair of Environmental Studies
Why do I research religion?
I study religion – collectively its places, stories, people and customs – because I believe it remains a powerful force of promising cultural change. To live well and intentionally on a warmer planet that is increasingly characterized by social strife is to know and appreciate something about religion.
Associate Professor of Practice in Religion; Senior Research Fellow
Why do I research religion?
Because I live to have conversations with others about the deep, abiding, enduring questions that are central to being human
Assistant Professor of Religion
Why religion?
Why have we made the world as it is? I’ve asked versions of this question for most of my life. The best I’ve got is trying to understand what people mean when saying things about what they ultimately value.
Associate Professor of Religion; Department Chair of Religion
Why do I research religion?
Bad biblical interpretation ruins lives, while good biblical interpretation can transform them. I want to know how to distinguish them from each other!
Professor of Religion and Philosophy
Why did you choose to study religion?
Hmm. I’m an old man and that was a long time ago to remember. But it had something to do with reading Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling.
Associate Professor of Religion; Director of Middle East Studies
Why did you choose to study religion?
Two reasons. i) it is so interdisciplinary and liberal artsy in its focus: to do it well, you have to incorporate skills from literary analysis, history, philosophy, sociology, etc. ii) Religion is a way that everyone (both the highly and poorly educated) approaches big and complicated ideas. I find the tension between faith-reason fascinating.
Harold Ditmanson Distinguished Professor of Religion
Why do I research religion theology?
I adore theology and its questions have stuck with me the most.
Charles Wilson
Professor of Religion
Why do I research religion?
As a 7th-grader in the hometown Carnegie library, I read the whole shelf of religion books and decided I wanted to be a scholar of religion.
Assistant Professor of Religion and Asian Studies
Why did you choose to study religion?
I study religion to figure out how we can all wake up–without hitting snooze on life.
Sarah Zager
Assistant Professor of Religion
Why do I research religion?
I took “Introduction to Judaism” on a whim my Sophomore year of college and fell in love with the ways that Religion let me think about big questions about what’s important and why. I read a book by the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (grandfather of the composers Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn) in that class, and have been studying him pretty much ever since.
Associate Professor of Practice in Religion
Why do I research religion?
“A taste for the sublime is a greed like any other.”
The great Annie Dillard says it best
Kelly Sherman-Conroy
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion (Adjunct)
Why do I research religion?
For me, studying theology is an act of healing and reclamation showing that our Indigenous spiritual traditions do not pull us away from God, but rather deepen our relationship with God.
Dana Scopatz
Assistant Professor of Religion (Adjunct)
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