Faculty

Director / Director of Undergraduate Studies

Name Contact Specialties
Katharine Gerbner
Department of History
Director 
Director of Undergraduate Studies
1239 Heller Hall
612-624-3507
kgerbner@umn.edu
Religious dimensions of race, authority, and freedom in the early modern Atlantic world

Undergraduate Advisor

Name  Contact    
Peter Harle
Director of Undergraduate Studies
415 Heller Hall                                             
612-624-2379
harle005@umn.edu

Director of Graduate Studies

Name Contact Specialties
Anna Lise Seastrand
Department of History
417 Heller Hall
612-625-6384
seast003@umn.edu
South Asian art

Core Faculty & Staff

Name Contact Specialties

Patricia Ahearne-Kroll
Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions and Cultures

 

262 Nicholson Hall
612-301-1300
pahearne@umn.edu
Second temple Judaism, Religion in Ptolemaic Egypt, Jewish apocrypha and pseude
Stephen Ahearne-Kroll
Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions and Cultures
146E Nicholson Hall
612-301-1480
sahearne@umn.edu
New Testament, Hellenistic religions, Second Temple Judaism, gender, family
Ranjani Atur  
Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions & Cultures
254 Nicholson Hall    
612-625-3326  ratur@umn.edu
Ancient Greek Religion, Material Culture and Space, Comparative Religions, Ancient Polytheisms, Early Christianity
421 Heller Hall
612-625-8336
gree2948@umn.edu
  • East Asian Art
Giancarlo Casale
Department of History
1237 Heller Hall
612-626-4265
casale@umn.edu
Ottoman Empire, intellectual life in the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Sinem Casale
Department of Art History
346 Heller Hall
612-626-6342
sinem@umn.edu
Islamic art and architecture with an emphasis on the history and visual culture of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals.
Penny Edgell
Department of Sociology
1039 Social Sciences Building
612-624-9828
edgell@umn.edu
Culture, gender, religion
Aisha Ghani
Department of Anthropology
369 Hubert H. Humphrey Center
aghani@umn.edu
Anthropology of religion and secularism, political and legal anthropology, violence, liberalism sovereignty, U.S. constitutional and environmental law, Islamic law, psychoanalysis, courtroom ethnography, social theory; Islam and Muslim communities in the United States
Katharine Gerbner
Department of History
1239 Heller Hall
612-624-3507
kgerbner@umn.edu
Religious dimensions of race, authority, and freedom in the early modern Atlantic world
Alia Goehr
Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
220 Folwell Hall
agoehr@umn.edu
Early modern Chinese literature and religion, Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism
Peter Harle
CLA Advising
338 Heller Hall
612-625-2379
harle005@umn.edu
 

Bernard Levinson

Berman Family Chair of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible

Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions and Cultures

258 Nicholson Hall
612-625-4323
levinson@umn.edu
Hebrew Bible, Jewish studies, history of interpretation, literary approaches to biblical studies, divine revelation
Hanne Loeland-Levinson
Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions and Cultures
150E Nicholson Hall
612-624-8341
loela001@umn.edu
Gender studies, metaphor theory, prophetic literature, and biblical narratives
Howard Louthan
Department of History
1116 Heller Hall
612-624-7834
hlouthan@umn.edu
Early modern Europe; Central Europe; cultural, intellectual, and religious history
Nabil Matar
Department of English
330C Lind Hall
612-626-8320
matar010@umn.edu
Early modern Euro-Islamic contacts, 17th century British religious literature
Natan Paradise
Associate Director of the Center for Jewish Studies
150B Nicholson Hall
612-625-2020
parad004@umn.edu
Center for Jewish Studies
Morgan Rouzer
Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
230D Folwell Hall
612-624-1486
prouzer@umn.edu
Buddhism and its relation to pre-modern and modern literature
Nida Sajid
Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
260 Nicholson Hall
612-625-2015
nsajid@umn.edu
South Asian Literature and Culture, Modern Muslim World and Islam in South Asia, Empire and Postcolonial Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Anna Seastrand
Department of Art History
338 Heller Hall
612-625-6384
annalise@umn.edu
South Asian art and religious practice; sacred space; Hinduism and the South Indian temple
J.B. Shank
Department of History
922 Heller Hall
612-624-7323
jbshank@umn.edu
History of Western philosophy, science, and religion
Ajay Skaria
Department of History
924 Heller Hall
612-624-7565
skari002@umn.edu
South Asia, environmental history
Theofanis Stavrou
Department of History
1224 Heller Hall
612-624-5734
stavr001@umn.edu
Religious history of Russia in the twentieth century
Andrea Sterk
Department of History
1237 Heller Hall
612-626-4265
sterk@umn.edu
Ancient and medieval Christianity, late antiquity, Byzantium history
Rachel Trocchio  Department of English 310A Pillsbury Hall
612-625-0134 
trocc004@umn.edu
17th- through 19th-century American literature, Puritanism and Puritan literary studies, Early Modern Studies, Intellectual History, Religion and Cognition
Ann Waltner
Department of History
912 Heller Hall
612-624-3810
waltn001@umn.edu
Law, world history, gender, traditional Chinese social history

Affiliated Faculty & Staff

Name Contact Specialties
Hakim Abderrezak
Department of French & Italian
303C Folwell Hall
612-624-1074
abder002@umn.edu
French and Francophone language, literature, and culture; French immigration policies, Maghrebi cinema, north African and Caribbean literature
Cawo Abdi
Department of Sociology
1146 Social Sciences Building
612-624-3714
cabdi@umn.edu
Migration, transnationalism, Islam, race, class, gender, globalization
Dean Billmeyer
School of Music
100 Ferguson Hall
612-624-3307
dwb@umn.edu
Organ, analysis and techniques of sacred music
David Chang
Department of History
1143 Heller Hall
612-624-9045
dchang@umn.edu
Race and ethnicity in Hawai'i and the United States, religion in the politics of agrarian socialism
Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions and Cultures
146F Nicholson Hall
Greek and Roman Religion
Kirsten Fischer
Department of History
1049 Heller Hall
612-626-4456
kfischer@umn.edu
American religious history
Michael Gaudio
Department of Art History
364 Heller Hall
612-624-0847
gaudio@umn.edu
Visual culture of early modern Europe, Protestant Reformation
Michelle Hamilton
Department of Spanish & Portuguese
209 Folwell Hall
612-625-6661
hamilton@umn.edu
Jews, Muslims, and Christians in medieval Iberia; Maimonides; Ibn Rushd; Christian mystics; Moriscos; mysticism
Katherine Hayes
Department of Anthropology
386 Hubert H. Humphrey Center
612-626-7482
kathayes@umn.edu
Historical archaeology and material culture, early colonial entanglements of European settlers, Native Americans and enslaved Africans in North America. 
Zornitsa Keremidchieva
Department of Communication Studies
225 Ford Hall
zkeremid@umn.edu
Rhetorical studies, intercultural and interfaith institution building around the Eastern Orthodox world
Dwight K. Lewis, Jr.
Department of Philosophy
817 Heller Hall
612-625-6563
lewi1715@umn.edu
History of early modern philosophy, philosophy of race, religion and blackness
Alan Love
Department of Philosophy
735 Heller Hall
612-625-4510
aclove@umn.edu
Philosophy of biology, philosophy of science, science and religion
Peter Mercer-Taylor
School of Music
100 Ferguson Hall
612-624-0385
merce011@umn.edu
Music history 1750–1900, American hymnology
Susan Noakes
Department of French & Italian
305D Folwell Hall
612-624-0076
noake001@umn.edu
Women's studies, the Global Middle Ages
Steven Ostrow
Department of Art History
338A Heller Hall
612-624-4500
ostro133@umn.edu
Early modern Italian visual culture, post-Tridentine period and seventeenth-century sculpture and art theory
Matt Rahaim
School of Music
170 Ferguson Hall
612-624-2393
mrahaim@umn.edu
South Asia, vocal and bodily practices, ethical self-cultivation, phenomenology, performance, ethnography, sonic ecology
Andrew Scheil
Department of English
310E Lind Hall
612-625-9518
ascheil@umn.edu
Late antique and early medieval theology, exegesis, and literature; anti-Semitism; religion and literature (especially poetry)
Daniel Schroeter
Department of History
1018 Heller Hall
612-624-2800
schro800@umn.edu
Jewish studies, Middle East, north Africa
Hoon Song
Department of Anthropology
395 Hubert H. Humphrey Center
612-624-8980
songx080@umn.edu
Theories of religion, witchcraft, divination, sorcery, shamanism
Shaden Tageldin
Department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature
218 Nicholson Hall
612-625-8445
tageldin@umn.edu
19th- and 20th-century literatures in English, Arabic, French, empire and postcolonial studies, critical translation theory, political of language, literary form, genre, histories and ideologies of comparative literature, aesthetics and biologics of race, nation, culture, literatures of migration and diaspora
John Watkins
Department of English
312 Lind Hall
612-624-8879
watki005@umn.edu
Reformation cultural history, apocalypticism in modern American culture

Faculty Emeriti

Name Contact Specialties
Catherine Asher
Department of Art History
370 Heller Hall
612-626-8339
asher001@umn.edu
Cultural production of south Asia and the Islamic world
William Beeman
Department of Anthropology
395 Hubert H. Humphrey Center
wbeeman@umn.edu
Islam, Middle Eastern religion and anthropology
Jeffrey Broadbent
Department of Sociology
1026 Social Sciences Building
612-624-1828
broad001@umn.edu
Religious cultural influence and social action in east Asian society
Jasper Hopkins
Department of Philosophy
hopkins@umn.edu History of medieval and of Renaissance philosophy, philosophy of religion
Jeanne Kilde
Religious Studies Program
146C Nicholson Hall
612-625-6393
jkilde@umn.edu
Theory and method in religious studies, religion in America, religious space and architecture
Patricia Lorcin
Department of History 
1020 Heller Hall
612-626-4269 
plorcin@umn.edu
Modern France and French imperialism, Race and Racial ideology in France and its colonies, Western Imperialism, Colonialism, Post-colonial Studies
Department of American Studies
prell001@umn.edu Anthropology of America, cultural studies of American Jews and Judaism
Melissa Harl Sellew
Department of Classical & Near Eastern Studies
260 Nicholson Hall
612-625-2026
sellew@umn.edu
Greek and Roman religion, New Testament studies, early Christianity