Faculty & Staff

Program Director

Beata Grant (Ph.D. Stanford University, 1987)
Director, Religious Studies; Professor of Chinese and Religious Studies
Interests: Women's literature and culture in Late Imperial China, classical Chinese poetry, women and religion, Chinese Buddhism
Contact: Eliot 303, CB 1111, 935-8577, bgrant@artsci.wustl.edu

 

Core Faculty

Catherine Adcock (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2007)
Assistant Professor of South Asian and Religious Studies
Interests: Modern South Asian history; Hinduism and Islam in South Asia and the Middle East; Nationalism; Colonialism; Religion in political culture; Social theory; Postcolonial theory; Secularism
Contact: Eliot 230, CB 1062, 935-9281, cadcock@artsci.wustl.edu

Asad Ahmed (Ph.D. Princeton University, 2006)
Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Religion
Interests: Arabo-Islamic philosophy and theology, with a special focus on logic and epistemology, classical Arabic poetry and poetics, Hadith studies, Tafsir, and Graeco-Arabica
Contact: Eliot 300J, CB 1111, 935-7894, aahmed@artsci.wustl.edu

Daniel Bornstein (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1985)
Stella K. Darrow Chair of Catholic Studies; Professor of History and Religion
Interests: Christianity in Medieval Europe especially Italy, Saints and Monasticism
Contact: Eliot 332, CB 1062, 935-7279, dbornste@artsci.wustl.edu

Frank Flinn (Ph.D. University of St. Michael's College, 1981)
Adjunct Professor
Interests: Christianity
Contact: CB 1065, fkflinn@artsci.wustl.edu

Ahmet T. Karamustafa (Ph.D. McGill University, 1987)
Professor of Islamic History and Religious Studies
Interests: Pre-modern Islam (12th-16th centuries CE), Religious studies, Sufism, History of science
Contact: Eliot 334, CB 1062, 935-4446, akaramus@artsci.wustl.edu

Pauline Lee (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2002)
Assistant Professor in Chinese Religion & Culture
Interests: Early Chinese thought, Chinese Neo-Confusanism, Chinese feminisms, Contemporary East Asian feminisms, Comparative feminist thought
Contact: Eliot 301, CB 1111, 935-9438, pclee@wustl.edu

 

Courtesy Appointments

Pamela Barmash (Ph.D. Harvard University, 1999)
On leave Fall 2008 and Spring 2009
Director of Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies; Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Biblical Hebrew
Interests: Hebrew Bible and Biblical Hebrew, history of law, religions of the ancient Near East, history of scriptural interpretation
Contact: CB 1111, pbarmash@artsci.wustl.edu

Martin Jacobs (Ph.D. and Habilitation Free University of Berlin, 1994 & 2002)
Interim Director of Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies; Associate Professor of Rabbinic Studies
Interests: Rabbinic literature and thought, Jewish historiography, Jewish-Muslim cultural and literary contacts, Jews in Islamic lands, Medieval Travel Literature
Contact: Eliot 300C, CB 1111, 935-4891, mjabocs@artsci.wustl.edu

Fatemeh Keshavarz (Ph.D. London University, 1985)
Chair of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures; Professor of Persian Language and Literature and Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies
Interests: Persian literature, Islamic civilization, Women's issues, Manuscript studies
Contact: Eliot 209, CB 1111, 935-5156, fatemeh@artsci.wustl.edu

Hillel Kieval (Ph.D. Harvard University, 1981)
Chair of History; Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought
Interests: Modern Jewish history, East Central Europe
Contact: Eliot 222, CB 1062, 935-5426, hkieval@artsci.wustl.edu

 

Visiting Faculty

Yaroslav Komarovski (Ph.D. University of Virginia, 2007)
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in East Asian Religions
Interests: Buddhist doctrinal systems, logic and epistemology, sectarian polemics, Buddhist interpretations of reality, contested models of the Buddhist paths, theories and practices of Buddhist Tantra, and classical and modern Tibetan language
Contact: Eliot 300D, CB 1065, 935-8330, ykomarov@artsci.wustl.edu

 

Affiliated Faculty
(Please note all links open to external websites)

John Bowen (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1984)
Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences, Sociocultural Anthropology
Interests: Islam, law, politics; Indonesia, Europe
Contact: McMillan 133, CB 1114, 935-5680, jbowen @ artsci.wustl.edu

Pascal Boyer (Ph.D. University de Paris-Nanterre, 1986)
Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory
Interests: Cognitive processes, cultural transmission, cognitive development, evolutionary psychology, cross-cultural psychology, religion
Contact: McMillian 132, CB 1114, 935-8282, pboyer @ artsci.wustl.edu

Eric Brown (Ph.D. University of Chicago)
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Interests: Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and ethics
Contact: Wilson Hall 213, CB 1073, 935-4257, eabrown@wustl.edu

Christine Johnson (Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University, 2001)
Associate Professor of History
Interests: Early modern Europe
Contact: Eliot 226, CB 1062, 935-7881, cjohns@artsci.wustl.edu

Robert Lamberton (Ph.D. Yale University)
Professor of Classics
Interests: Greek Literature
Contact: CB 1050, 935-8587, rdlamber@artsci.wustl.edu

David Lawton (Ph.D. University of York)
Professor of English
Interests: Medieval literatures and culture, Chaucer, literary history and theory, poetics, blasphemy, postcolonial and Australian studies
Contact: Duncker Hall, CB 1122, 935-5114, dalawton@artsci.wustl.edu

Rebecca Lester (Ph.D. University of California at San Diego, 1998)
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Interests: Medical anthropology, gender, embodiment, religion and ritual, psychological anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry
Contact: McMillian 121, CB 1114, 935-9426, rjlester @ artsci.wustl.edu

Yufeng Mao
Postdoctoral Fellow in History
Interests: Islam in China, Chinese Foreign Relations Since the Opium War
Contact: Eliot 223, CB 1062, 935-5920, ymao@artsci.wustl.edu

Clare Palmer (Ph.D. University of Oxford, 1993)
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies
Interests: Environmental Philosopy and Ethics
Contact: Wilson 108, CB 1073, 935-7148, cpalmer@artsci.wustl.edu

Mark Pegg (Ph.D. Princeton University, 1997)
Associate Professor of History
Interests: Medieval Europe
Contact: Eliot 315, CB 1062, 935-4256, mpegg@artsci.wustl.edu

George Pepe (Ph.D. Yale University)
Professor of Classics
Interests: Greek Literature
Contact: January 202, CB 1050, 935-4172, gpepe@artsci.wustl.edu

Nancy Reynolds (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2003)
Assistant Professor of Modern Middle East History
Interests: The intersection of the political economy and cultural history of 20th century Egypt, Women in the modern middle East
Contact: Eliot 325 , CB 1062, 935-4167, nreynolds@wustl.edu

Sarah Rivett (Ph.D. University of Chicago)
Assistant Professor, English & American Culture Studies
Interests: The literature and culture of early America and the early modern Atlantic world with additional interests in gender studies, race, theology, and the history of science.
Contact: Duncker Hall, CB 1122, 935-5579, srivett@wustl.edu

Robert Wiltenburg (Ph.D. University of Rochester, 1982)
Dean of University College, Adjunct Associate Professor of English
Interests: Renaissance literature, composition, Milton, Shakespeare
Contact: January 100, CB 1064, 935-4806, rewilten@artsci.wustl.edu