Dr. Mark A. Chancey (B.A., M.A., University of Georgia; Ph.D., Duke University) is a Professor of Religious Studies and chair of the department. He teaches course on biblical studies such as "Introduction to the New Testament," "Pauline Christianity," and "World of the New Testament." His research interests include the Gospels, the Historical Jesus, early Judaism, archaeology and the Bible, and the political and social history of Palestine during the Roman period. He is the author of two books on the archaeology of Galilee with Cambridge University Press, The Myth of a Gentile Galilee (2002) and Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (2005). He is currently at work on a book-length overview of the archaeology of the land of Israel from Alexander the Great to Constantine. In recent years he has devoted considerable attention to the constitutional, political and academic issues raised by Bible courses in public schools. Chancey is the recipient of SMU's "M" Award, the Godbey Lecture Series Authors' Award, the Rotunda Outstanding Professor Award, the Golden Mustang Outstanding Faculty Award, and the Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor Award. Contact Information: mchancey@smu.edu, 214-768-1460
Dr. G. William Barnard (B.A., Antioch University; M.A., Temple University; Ph.D., University of Chicago) is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies. His primary areas of research are the comparative philosophy of mysticism, religion and the social sciences, contemporary spirituality, religion and healing, the psychology of religion, consciousness studies, and pedagogy in religious studies. He teaches a variety of courses on related topics such as "Magic, Myth, and Religion;" "Mysticism: East and West;" "Introduction to Primal Religions;" and "Wholeness and Holiness: Religion and Healing Across Cultures." Barnard is the author of Exploring Unseen Worlds: William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism (State University of New York Press, 1997) and co-editor of Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism (Seven Bridges Press/ Chatham House 2002). He has just completed Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson, soon to be published by State University of New York Press. He has received the SMU Mortar Board Honor Society Award for Teaching Excellence, the Godbey Lecture Series Authors’ Award, the Golden Mustang Outstanding Faculty Award, and the Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor Award. Professor Barnard is currently researching the Santo Daime tradition, a syncretistic religious movement in Brazil. Contact Information: bbarnard@smu.edu, 214-768-2135
Dr. Richard W. Cogley (B.A., Franklin and Marshall College; M.Div., Yale University; Ph.D., Religion, Princeton University) is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies. He teaches the introductory course "Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible" and well as more advanced undergraduate courses such as "Religious Sects and Cults in America," "The Puritan Tradition in England and America," and "The History of Christianity." English and American Puritanism has been the focus of his research, and he is the author of John Eliot's Mission to the Indians before King Philip's War (Harvard University Press, 1999). He received the Godbey Lecture Series Authors' Award for this book, a critical study of the New England Puritan minister better known as the "Apostle to the Indians." His current project is a study of Puritan eschatology and views regarding the settlement of ancient America. During his time as chair from 1999-2007, the department expanded from four continuing faculty lines to eight. Before coming to SMU, he held visiting appointments at North Carolina State University, Loyola Marymount University, and Reed College. Contact Information: rcogley@smu.edu, 214-768-2099
Dr. Jill DeTemple (B.A., Bowdoin College; M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School; Ph. D., the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. DeTemple served several years as an agricultural extensionist with the U.S. Peace Corps in Ecuador before beginning her graduate studies. Her research interests include religiously sponsored development organizations, religions of Latin America, Pentecostalism, and theory and method in the study of religion. She is currently at work on a book titled Building Faith: Christianity, Development Organizations and the Reformation of Modernity in Highland Ecuador for University of Notre Dame Press. Dr. DeTemple has received two Ford Tinker grants and a Foreign Language and Area Studies grant for research in Ecuador, and serves on the steering committee for the Religions of Latin America and the Caribbean Group of the American Academy of Religion. Her courses include "Borderlands: Latino/a Religions in the United States," "The Philosophy of Religion," "The Social-Scientific Study of Religion," and "Ways of Being Religious." She is the recipient of the HOPE Teaching Award and the Rotunda Outstanding Professor Award and was a 2008-2009 fellow at the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. Contact Information: detemple@smu.edu, 214-768-2102.
Dr. Johan Elverskog (B.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.A., Ph.D., Indiana University) is a Professor of Religious Studies. He has published widely on the history of Buddhism in Inner Asia and is the author and editor of seven books, including Our Great Qing: The Mongols, Buddhism, and the State in Late Imperial China (University of Hawaii Press, 2006) and Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), the latter of which was named an Outstanding Academic Title of 2010 by Choice Magazine. Elverskog's courses include "Introduction to Eastern Religions," "A Cultural History of Tibet," "Introduction to Buddhism," and "Chinese Religions." He is the recipient of the Godbey Lecture Series Authors' Award and the Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor Award and has held fellowships at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Contact Information: johan@smu.edu, 214-768-4127.
Dr. Serge Frolov (M.A., Ph.D., Leningrad University; M.A., Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and the Nate and Ann Levine Professor of Jewish Studies. He teaches a wide range of courses including "Introduction to the Hebrew Bible," "The History of Judaism," "Religion and the Holocaust," "The Feminine Divine," and "Love and Death in Ancient Mythology." The author of The Turn Of The Cycle: 1 Samuel 1-8 In Synchronic And Diachronic Perspectives (Walter de Gruyter, 2004) and over two hundred articles in English and Russian, his areas of research are biblical hermeneutics and theology, history and religions of the ancient Near East, and Jewish history and thought. Before joining SMU in 2002, he worked for the National Library of Russia and the Shorter Jewish Encyclopedia in Russia, and he also taught at the Open University of Israel. He is the winner of the Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar Award, the Junior Scholar Award from the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies and the Golden Mustang Outstanding Faculty Award. Contact Information: sfrolov@smu.edu, 214-768-4478
Dr. John C. Lamoreaux (B.A., Michigan State University; M.A., Northwestern University; and Ph.D., Duke University) is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies. His research focuses on early Islam, Christian minorities living under Islam, and Arabic and Syriac Christian texts. His six books include Theodore Abu Qurrah (Brigham Young University Press, 2005); The Early Muslim Tradition of Dream Interpretation (State University of New York Press, 2002); John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus (Oxford University/ Clarendon Press, 1998) and the forthcoming Hunayn Ibn Ishaq on His Galen Translations (Brigham Young University Press). He has been the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Grant from the Commission for Educational Exchange between the United States and Turkey. Prof. Lamoreaux teaches a wide range of courses including "Introduction to Western Religions," "Introduction to Islam," "Islam and the West," and "Religion and Science." Contact Information: jclam@smu.edu, 214-768-1529
Dr. Steven E. Lindquist (B.A., The University of Wisconsin - Madison; M.A., The University of Chicago; Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin) is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and the Director of Asian Studies. A specialist in South Asian religious traditions with particular interests in Indian religious, literary, and material history, his writing focuses on Sanskrit religious literature. He has published articles on topics such as Indian numismatics and literary and religious aspects of the Upanishads. He is the editor of Religion and Identity in South Asia and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Patrick Olivelle (Anthem Press) and the author of the forthcoming Creating a Sage: The Literary Life of Yajnavalkya (State University of New York Press), which traces the “literary life” of the ancient Indian ritualist and sage, Yajnavalkya, through roughly one thousand years of literary history. Some of the classes that he teaches are "Introduction to Eastern Religions," "Introduction to Hinduism," "Myths, Epics, and Tales from Ancient India," and "Hinduism in Colonial Encounters." Dr. Lindquist has been a recipient of several awards, including the Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant and the American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Fellowship. He has lived in India over five years conducting research, reading Sanskrit and Hindi, and consulting with local scholars. He previously taught at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. Contact Information: slindqui@smu.edu, 214-768-2105
Affiliated Faculty of the Department of Religious Studies
Dr. Charles E. Curran (B.A., St. Bernard's College; S.T.L., Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome; S.T.D., Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome; S.T.D., Academia Alfonsiana, Rome) is the Elizabeth Scurlock University Chair of Human Values. Dr. Curran is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the world's most prestigious honorary societies. He is the author of numerous over three hundred publications on Catholic moral theology, social ethics, and the role of the Church as a moral and political actor in society. His numerous books include Issues in Sexual and Medical Ethics (University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), The Moral Theology of Pope John II (Georgetown University Press, 2005), Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian (Georgetown University Press, 2006), and Catholic Social Teaching 1891-Present: A Historical, Theological, and Ethical Analysis (Georgetown University Press, 2002). His book Catholic Moral Theology in the United States: A History (Georgetown University Press, 2008) won the American Publisher's Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence in Theology and Religion and the First Place Prize in History in the Catholic Press Association Book Awards. Prof. Curran's courses include "Bioethics from a Christian Perspective" and "Christianity and American Public Life." Contact Information: Elizabeth Scurlock University Chair of Human Values, Campus Box 317 , SMU, Dallas 75275-0317/ ccurran@smu.edu / 214-768-4073
Dr. Robin W. Lovin (B.A., Northwestern University; B.D., Ph.D. Harvard University) is Cary Maguire University Professor of Ethics. Prof. Lovin served as Dean of the Perkins School of Theology from 1994 until 2002 and previously held teaching positions at Emory University and the University of Chicago, and he was Dean of the Theological School at Drew University. He is an ordained minister of the United Methodist Church and is active in local and national church events. His research interests include social ethics, religion and law, and comparative religious ethics. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous scholarly journals, including the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Studies in Christian Ethics, and the Journal of Law and Religion, and he is an editor-at-large for the Christian Century. His own writings include Christian Faith and Public Choices: The Social Ethics of Barth, Brunner, and Bonhoeffer (Fortress Press, 1984), Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Christian Realism and the New Realities (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and the forthcoming An Introduction to Christian Ethics: Goals, Duties, and Virtues (Abingdon Press). Dr. Lovin teaches courses such as "Christian Ethics and Moral Issues," "The Bible and Ethics," and "Religion and Human Rights." Contact Information: Cary M. Maguire University Chair of Ethics, Campus Box 317, SMU, Dallas, 75275-0317/ rlovin@smu.edu / 214-768-4134
Dr. Joseph B. Tyson, (B.A., B.D., Duke University; S.T.M., Ph.D. Union Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies. Dr. Tyson taught at SMU from 1958-1998 and was chair of the department from 1965-1975 and again from 1986-1993. He continues to serve as a mentor to the department's members. His major research has been in New Testament studies, the history of early Christianity, Jewish-Christian relations. Many of his publications have focused on the biblical books Luke-Acts. His most recent book is Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle (University of South Carolina Press, 2006); earlier works include Luke, Judaism, and the Scholars: Critical Approaches to Luke-Acts (University of South Carolina Press, 1999) and The Death of Jesus in Luke-Acts (University of South Carolina Press, 1986). Contact Information: Campus Box 202, SMU, Dallas, 75275-0202/ jtyson@smu.edu