William Elison (Williams, B.A.; Chicago, Ph.D. [expected fall 2007]) studies religious life in contemporary South Asia from an ethnographic perspective. He is interested in folk and popular forms as practiced in urban slums and among Indian tribal (adivasi) communities, and in the mediation of religion in Indian public culture, particularly through cinema. His dissertation is called "Immanent Domains: Gods, Laws, and Tribes in Mumbai," and he is currently collaborating on a volume of essays about the landmark Hindi film Amar Akbar Anthony (Manmohan Desai, 1977).

Roger R. Jackson (Wesleyan, BA; Wisconsin, MA, PhD), 1983-84, 1989-, teaches the religions of South Asia and Tibet. His special interests include Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and ritual; Buddhist religious poetry; religion and society in Sri Lanka; and contemporary Buddhist thought. He is co-author of The Wheel of Time: Kalachakra in Context (1985), author of Is Enlightenment Possible? (1993) and Tantric Treasures (2004), co-editor of Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre (1996) and Buddhist Theology (1999), and author of many articles and reviews. He served for many years as editor of the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and is currently co-editor of the Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies.

(Columbia, BA,; University of Pennsylvania, MA, Ph.D.) is interested in the intersections and ruptures between sacred and secular, both in the Hebrew Bible and in later interpretations and incarnations of it. She is the author of a forthcoming novel, Questioning Return, which concerns a graduate student in American religion who goes to Israel to study newly religious American Jews there. She is also the editor of the forthcoming anthology, Genesis Goes to College, which is a collection of essays by professors in diverse fields who use an aspect of their academic expertise to discuss the Biblical text. She is currently at work on a scholarly work on the places that humans and the divine misunderstand each other in five places in the Bible, and a second novel, The Life I was Supposed to Have. She is teaching “Introduction to Judaism”, “The Sacred Journey: Exodus and other Literary Pilgrimages”, “Introduction to Hebrew Bible”, “Gender Roles in the Hebrew Bible”, and “Genesis” this year.

Michael McNally (Carleton, BA ; Harvard Univ., MDiv, MA, PhD), 2001-, teaches courses in
American religion and culture and Native American religious traditions. His special
interests include the tradition and history of Minnesota's Anishinaabe Ojibwe community,
Native American Christianity, and lived religion in America. He is author of Ojibwe
Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion (2000), editor of Art of Tradition:
Sacred Story, Song, and Dance among Michigan's Anishinaabe (2006), and a number of book chapters and journal articles. His current research projects explore, on the one hand, aging, eldership, and religion in the Ojibwe tradition, and on the other explore the intersection between law, "religion," and Native American traditions.

Louis E. Newman, John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, Director of Judaic Studies, (Univ. of Minnesota, BA, MA; Brown Univ., PhD), 1983-, teaches courses in Judaic studies and has special interests in Jewish ethics and contemporary Jewish life and thought, especially in America. He is the author of Past Imperatives: Studies in the History and Theory of Jewish Ethics (1998) and is co-editor of Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality (1995) and Contemporary Jewish Theology (1999).His most recent book is An Introduction to Jewish Ethics (2005).

Anne E. Patrick (Medaille College, BA; Univ. of Maryland, MA; Univ. of Chicago, MA, PhD),
1980-, is William H. Laird Professor of Religion and the Liberal Arts. She has a special
interest in the areas of religion and literature, and Christian feminist theology and
ethics. A past President of the Catholic Theological Society of America, she was also a
founding Vice-president of the International Network of Societies for Catholic Theology.
She is the author of numerous articles and reviews, and the book Liberating Conscience:
Feminist Explorations in Catholic Moral Theology (1996). She is now completing another
volume, Conscience in Context: Vocation, Virtue, and History.

Lori Pearson (St. Olaf College, BA; Harvard, MTS, ThD), 2003--, is a specialist in
Christian theology with particular interests in 19th century German Protestant thought,
modern philosophy of religion, hermeneutics, race, and feminist theory. Her current
research focuses on theories of tradition and conceptions of the "identity" of
Christianity. She is author of Beyond Essence: Ernst Troeltsch as Historian and Theorist
of Christianity (2006), co-editor of The Future of the Study of Religion (2004), and
author of articles and papers dealing with Ernst Troeltsch, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and
other topics.

Hampshire College, B.A., Chicago, M.A. and Ph.D. (expected summer 2009)
Studies religious formations in the Afro-Atlantic world, particularly those traditions deeply indebted to West and Central African cultures. Her long-term research interests include Caribbean altar display and images of the Black female body in the material culture and aesthetic regimes of Afro-Atlantic religions. Her dissertation, "Returning to the Drum: Healing and Conversion in an African-American Santeria Community," is based on ethnographic research conducted on Chicago's South Side.

Asuka Sango (Wittenberg University, BA; University of Illinois, MA; Princeton University, PhD), 2007-, teaches courses in the religions of East Asia. Her special interests include Buddhist rituals, religion and society in Japan, food and religion, and Buddhist activism in contemporary societies. Her dissertation examines Buddhist debates in premodern Japan and analyzes how such ritual performance offered a unique site for producing political power and doctrinal knowledge.

Ian Barbour was a physics major at Swarthmore and was awarded a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago. After teaching physics in Michigan he earned a divinity degree from Yale. Coming to Carleton in 1955, he founded the department of religion while teaching half time in physics. He began research, teaching, and writing on science and religion, dealing with methodological issues and the theological implications of contemporary science. In the seventies he and a political scientist started an interdisciplinary program currently called Environment and Technology Studies, and wrote about ethical issues raised by technology. In 1989 and 1990 he gave the Gifford Lectures in Scotland. In 1999, Barbour was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He has written or edited a dozen books, most recently When Science Meets Religion which has been translated into 14 languages.

Richard E. Crouter, Emeritus (Occidental, BA; Union Theological Seminary, BD, ThD), 1967- 2003. His primary interest is in the modern religious thought of Schleiermacher and Kierkegaard. He is the translator of Friedrich Schleiermacher's 1799 On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (1988, 1996), co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Neuere T eologiegeschichte /Journal for the History of Modern of Theology, (1993- ), and serves on the board of the German Schleiermacher Gesellschaft. His most recent book is Friedrich
Schleiermacher: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism (2005).