Department Faculty

Adam Becker

Professor; Chair, Department of Religious Studies; Director of Undergraduate Studies and Graduate Studies
Major Interests: Jewish-Christian relations in Late Antiquity; critical theories of religion; Syriac language and literature; reception of classical antiquity; religion in the modern Middle East.

 

Angela Zito

Associate Professor
Major Interests: Cultural history/historical anthropology; critical theories of religion; religions of China; filaility in China; religion and media; history and anthropology of embodiment; gender; performance and subjectivity; documentary film.

 

Hent de Vries

Professor
Major Interests: Metaphysics; philosophy of religion; religion and law.

 

Elayne Oliphant

Assistant Professor
Major Interests: Christianity; secularism critical approaches to the study of religion; visual anthropology; public space; France; Europe; contemporary art; museums; capitalism; xenophobia and privilege.

 

William McGrath

Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies
Major Interests: Buddhism in East and Central Asia, Tibetan and Chinese medical traditions, Tibetan language and history, and the intersections of religion and medicine.
 

Michael Baysa

Adjunct Instructor
Major Interests: Early American religious history, secularization narratives, print culture, racial and religious dimensions of publics, markets and technologies.

 

Alyssa Cady

Visiting Assistant Professor
Major interests: the cult of saints in Late Antiquity; social history of early Christianity; late-Rome and late Antique literature; gender and social mores in antiquity; visual media in religions of Mediterranean antiquity. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Religion and queer history, religion and U.S. politics, religion and sexuality, American religious history, American Jewish history, religion and media