Department of Philosophy and Religion

Biography

I am a scholar of religion, but found my way to religious studies through being a lifelong student with a wide range of interests which inform my research, my writing, and my teaching. Incorporating aspects of religious studies, history, anthropology, sociology, archeology, philosophy, intellectual history, gender studies, art, literature, and cinema studies, and even on occasion physics, biology, and more, I try to follow unexpected threads in my research and my teaching. Through this, I hope to show my students how interconnected seemingly disparate topics, themes, and perspectives can be.

Education

Ph.D., Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
M.A., Japanese Studies, Sophia University 上智大学, Tokyo, Japan
B.A., History and East Asian Studies, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA

Publications

2024:
“Trust” (fieldwork essay), The New Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions, edited by Matthew McMullen and Jolyon Baraka Thomas. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, Pending Publication.

Review: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions, edited by Erica Baffelli, Andrea Castiglioni, and Fabio Rambelli. Nova Religio, Pending Publication.

Review: “Many in Body, One in Mind”: The Journey of Soka Gakkai in America, by Akira Kawabata and Keishin Inaba. Nova Religio, February 2024; 27 (3): 114-116.

2022:
“Tenrikyo,” The Database of Religious History. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia. Updated August 2022. https://religiondatabase.org/browse/1412/

Review: Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan, by Jolyon Baraka Thomas. Nova Religio, August 2022; 26 (1): 132-133.

2020:
Review: Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora, by Suma Ikeuchi. Nova Religio, October 2020; 24 (2): 111–112.

2018:
“Tenrikyō.” Handbook of East Asian New Religious Movements. Eds. Franz Winter and Lukas Pokorny. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2018. (co-authored with Barbara R. Ambros)