The Religious Studies department consists of four faculty members, a visiting faculty member and a Cambell Fellow. Although small, the members of the department cover the world's major religious traditions.
faculty
Laura Desmond
Laura Desmond graduated from SLU in 1992, with a major in Religious Studies. In the time since then, she has received further training in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago, with a specialization in the social and intellectual history of South Asia. Her current research examines the relations between knowledge and subjectivity in the classical Sanskrit world, particularly as presented in the ca. 4th century C.E. Kāmasūtra. Her work draws heavily upon the disciplines of visual anthropology, history and philosophy of science, and classics, in addition to the transdisciplinary field of religious studies. She finds social theory irresistible. Besides courses on South Asian religious traditions, Professor Desmond looks forward to teaching courses on: Religion and Visual Culture; Science, Magic and Religion; Women and Religion; Material Religion; and Religion and the Erotic. She also teaches a comparative course on Goddesses, a class she first took, and loved, as a student at SLU.
Although thrilled to be returning to St. Lawrence as an Instructor, Professor Desmond secretly hopes to become a 19th-century natural historian (not, mind you, an historian of 19th century natural history, though she likes many people who match that description).
Mark MacWilliams
Dr. MacWilliams is a Professor of Religious Studies. He teaches courses associated with Asian Studies. He received his Ph.D. in History of Religions at the University of Chicago, his M.A. in Religious Studies at Indiana University, and his B.A. at Syracuse University.
Dr. MacWilliams has conducted special research in Japanese religions; Buddhism; pilgrimage in Japan and cross-culturally; religion and film; religion and the internet; and religion in Japanese pop culture - comic books (manga) and anime.
Currently, Professor MacWilliams teaches courses on pilgrimage, new religious movements and religion and film.
Professor MacWilliams is on sabbatical for the 2008-2009 academic year.
Jusuf Salih
Jusuf Salih is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. The focus of his dissertation is regarding theological views of Mustafa Sabri Efendi, one of the last supreme religious leaders of the Ottoman Empire. Mustafa Sabri was one of the last Ottoman intellectuals who was calling for the revival of traditional Ash‘ari theology and return to ‘original’ Islam. Since his views had huge impact on the Islamic world, by studying this period of transition of the Muslim world, Jusuf is trying to examine the debates among traditional and modern ulama and the intellectual milieu of the Islamic world in the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century with focus on the axis of the strongest Muslim Empire of the time.
His main interests are Islamic theology, Comparative religions, Islam in the modern world, Islam in Europe and North America.
Kathleen M. Self
Kathleen M. Self is an Assistant Professor in the department. She received her Ph.D in Religious Studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2005. Professor Self's research concerns conversion in the Middle Ages, in particular conversion narratives and representations of gender in those narratives. The literature of medieval Iceland, both pagan and Christian, is an additional, and much beloved, specialization. Professor Self teaches classes on Christianity, including classes on medieval Christianity and on the contemporary globalization of Christianity. She also teaches courses on religion and violence and the crusades.
In Fall 2008, Prof. Self is teaching courses on religion and violence, the Christian religious traditions and a section of the department's introductory course, "Mystery and Meaning."
Stuart Young
Stuart Young is Visiting Assistant Professor of East Asian religions. This year he is teaching two sections of Mystery and Meaning, the Buddhist Religious Tradition, Buddhist Art and Archaeology, the Religious Life of China, and Daoism.
Prof. Young recently completed his Ph.D. in Asian Religions at Princeton University, before which he earned an M.A. at the University of London, England, and a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College. His research interests include the interactions between Buddhism and indigenous traditions, religious biography, and Buddhist material culture. His ongoing book project, titled "Conceiving the Indian Buddhist Patriarchs in China," examines how medieval Chinese Buddhists understood their greatest Indian forebears as models of Buddhist practice for a world without a Buddha. He is also engaged in a shorter-term project on strategies devised by medieval Chinese Buddhists and Daoists to reconcile their moral, doctrinal, and ritual systems -- and commercial interests -- with the all-important silk industry.
Department Chair: Michael Greenwald
Michael Greenwald is originally from Kingston, New York. An Associate Professor of Religious Studies, his interests nevertheless are quite eclectic. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970, attended Hebrew Union College where he earned a Master's Degree in Hebrew Letters in 1973 and was ordained a rabbi in 1975. He finished his formal education at Boston University with a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins in 1989, the same year that he joined the St. Lawrence faculty.
His current research involves the completion of a book relating the collection of the documents that came to be called the New Testament and the collection of Jewish traditions in what came to be called the Mishnah with intellectual trends and structures of knowledge in the Roman Empire of the Second Century.
He regularly teaches courses on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and New Testament, on the religious traditions of Judaism, religions of the Greco-Roman world, the Holocaust, and the modern history of the Middle East, the latter two dual-listed with the History Department. He has taught upper-level seminars on Jesus in the Gospels, antisemitism, and religion and theology in the fantasy world of J.R.R. Tolkien.
An avid birder who has traveled throughout the United States and elsewhere, he has taught in the pas a first-year seminar on the birds of northern New York.
Staff
Department Secretary: Joyce M. Sheridan
Joyce Sheridan came to St. Lawrence in January of 1988. She is currently a Senior Secretary in the Departments of Global & Gender Studies half of the day and Religious Studies the other half.