Faculty by Area

Dr. Beach's teaching and research center on the Hebrew prophets and the biblical literature of the Persian period.

Sem. 102 :: E-mail
Tel: 973-408-3258

 Danna Nolan Fewell
-Professor of Hebrew Bible
-Ph.D., Emory University

Professor Fewell’s teaching and research focus on biblical narrative with special attention to constructions of gender, ethnicity, social roles, social trauma, and communal identity; on the ethics of reading; on the Bible and artistic imagination; and on post-Holocaust biblical interpretation.

Sem. 24 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3543

  Herbert B. Huffmon
-Professor of Old Testament
-Ph.D., University of Michigan

Professor Huffmon's Focus is on introducing students to the people of ancient Israel. This involves listening to the people (reading texts and seeking to understand what they sought to convey), meeting them at work and in their homes (archaeology), and interviewing their neighbors (the nearby peoples of the ancient Near East). In this process, special attention is given to social-scientific processes.

Sem. 11 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3265

Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre
-Associate Professor of New Testament
-Th.D., Harvard Divinity School

Professor Johnson-DeBaufre’s teaching and research interests include: traditions of the earliest "Christianities" (historical Jesus, Q, Pauline communities) in the context of the Roman empire with interest in both the ethics and practices of historiography and contemporary reconstructions of Christian origins; feminist and liberationist hermeneutics; and rhetorical analysis of biblical texts and their histories of interpretation.

Sem. 21 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3823

Professor Moore's Teaching and research center primarily on the narrative books of the New Testament. He has long been engrossed with the challenge of bringing biblical studies into deeper dialogue with broad intellectual currents in the humanities, such as posstructuralism, gender and sexuality studies (including masculinity studies and queer theory, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies.

Sem. 106 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3313

Kenneth Ngwa
-Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible
-Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary
*On leave Spring 2010

Professor Ngwa's teaching and research interests are in the Hebrew Bible and African literature, including Israelite and African wisdom literature, oral traditions, history of interpretation/receptions, and narrative ethics.

Sem  23:: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3780

 Althea Spencer-Miller
-Assistant Professor of New Testament
-Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University

Prof. Althea Spencer-Miller’s teaching interests include the Gospels, Acts, the Pauline corpus, New Testament Apocrypha, Biblical languages, and ancient and contemporary mythologies. Her research interests include the cross-cultural politics of writing, comparative cultural studies, reconstruction of early Christianities within the Greco-Roman Empire using gendered and post-colonial perspectives, comparative mythology, and contextual, feminist, and post-colonial hermeneutics and the implications of all these for textual criticism and historical reconstruction. To both her teaching and research Prof. Spencer-Miller brings post-colonial, liberationist, feminist, and subaltern perspectives.

 Sem. 29 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage

Note: Professor Virginia Burrus, who offers courses on ancient Christianity in the Historical Studies Area, is also an important resource for students in New Testament and Early Christianity.

Virginia Burrus
-Professor of Early Church History
-Chair of the Graduate Division of Religion
-Ph.D, Graduate Theological Union

Professor Burrus’ teaching and research interests in the field of ancient Christianity include gender, sexuality, and the body; martyrdom and asceticism; ancient novels and hagiography; constructions of orthodoxy and heresy; and histories of theology and historical theologies.

Sem. 112 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3099

  Morris L. Davis
-Associate Professor of the History of Christianity and Wesleyan/Methodist Studies
-Ph.D., Drew University

Professor Davis's teaching and research is in the broader field of Christianity in the Americas including race, nationalism, and the history of missions; slavery and racial segregation among Christians; Wesleyan and Methodist movements; and Christians and war.

Sem. 28 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3078

  L. Dale Patterson
-Adjunct Professor of American Religious History
-Ph.D., Drew University

Professor Patterson's teaching and research interests include archival studies, history of archives and Methodist history. This involves the social place and function of archives in history; modern issues of access and privacy concerns; the history of Methodist theology; and the place of religion in the Progressive Era, with a special interest in the interaction of religion and social policy during the Prohibition Movement.

Methodist Archives :: E-mail

Catherine Peyroux
-Associate Professor of the History of Christianity
-Ph.D., Princeton University
*On leave Spring 2010

Catherine Peyroux is a scholar of the cultural and social history of medieval Christianity, especially the history of Christianization, the history of women in Christianity, and the role of religious thought in social life.

Sem. 17 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3622

  Jesse Terry Todd
-Associate Professor of American Religious History
-Ph.D., Columbia University

Professor Todd's research and teaching focus on the history of American forms of Christian faith and practice, particularly as they develop in 20th-century urban contexts. He is especially interested in the influence of religious ideas on U.S. nationalism and representations of Jesus produced by American media. He is currently at work on a book that charts the development of the notion of Judeo-Christian America.

Sem. 114 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3847

  Leonard Sweet
-E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism
-Ph.D., University of Rochester

Professor Sweet's research and professional interests include church culture and culture issues; evangelism and missiology; the history of religion in America, especially 19th- and 20th-century evangelicalism; the emerging postmodern church; leadership issues; new forms of evangelism in the 21st-century church; and relationship theology.

Sem. 103 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3861

E-mail
Tel: 973-408-3019

  
Jill Burnett Comings
-Adjunct Professor of Liturgical Studies
-Ph.D., Drew University

Professor Comings’s teaching and research interests include early Christian liturgical history; Anglican liturgical history; Reformation liturgical history; liturgical time,;and history and theologies of initiation.

 E-mail
Tel: 973-408-3117

Professor Elkins’s teaching and research interests include liturgical theology, arts and liturgy; feminist studies in liturgy and homiletics; and Appalachian studies. She is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.

Sem. 13 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage :: Arts and Liturgy Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3273

Jesse Mann
-Adjunct Professor of Liturgical Studies
-Ph.D., University of Chicago

Teaching and research interests include theological Latin and German, medieval studies in economics and spirituality.

Teaching and research interests include modern liturgical history, liturgical architecture and Methodist liturgical history.

Professor Simpson's teaching and research interests include homiletics, pastoral theology, and Black Church studies.

Sem. 16 :: E-mail
Tel: 973-408-3992

Dr. Yardley's teaching and research interests focus on church music in a variety of contexts, with special attention to the integration of music into liturgy, the sociological aspects of music making, and gender issues. She has concentrated on musical practices in medieval nunneries, the development of choirs and anthem repertoire in the USA in the 19th century, and hymnology throughout the centuries.

Sem. 104 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3419

Professor Isasi-Díaz’s courses center on ethical method and key themes of social ethics like justice, moral agency, ideology and worldview. Her teaching and research uses a liberation hermeneutic, highlighting particularly women's struggles for fullness of life. She also offers courses and continue to write in the area of Latina/Latino theology, particularly Mujerista theology.

E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3269

  Laurel Kearns
-Associate Professor of the Sociology of Religion and Environmental Studies
-Ph.D., Emory University

Professor Kearns's teaching interests, beyond general sociology of religion, include the interplay of religion(s) in social change, globalization, and non-violent and ecological social movements; the religious landscape of the U.S., with particular interest in the religious expressions of women, new immigrant groups and people of color; and religion and ecology, with a particular interest in eco-justice. Her research is focused on religious, particularly Christian, involvement in environmental issues and movements and nature spirituality.

Sem. 108 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-4009

  Otto Maduro
-Professor of World Christianity
-Ph.D., Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Professor Maduro is a Venezuelan sociologist and philosopher of religion. His publications, research and teaching span, among other areas, U.S. Latina/o religions; liberation theologies in world Christianity; critical approaches in epistemology; sociological theories of religion; globalization and religion; U.S./Latin America relations; and Pierre Bourdieu. Since 1999, his research has been concentrated on U.S. Hispanic Pentecostalism, especially in the city of Newark (NJ).

12 Campus Dr.206 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3041

 Arthur L. Pressley
-Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion
-Ph.D., Northwestern University

Professor Pressley's teaching and research center on cross-cultural studies focusing on culture and personality, pastoral care and counseling, and psychology of trauma and recovery.

Sem. 208 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3594

 Angella M. Pak Son
-Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion
-Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary

Professor Son's teaching and research include psychology of religion; psychology of the self; theology of atonement; theological anthropology; practical theology; issues of grace, shame, and depression; and issues of family, women, and race.

Sem. 25 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3260

  
Traci C. West
-Professor of Ethics and African American Studies
-Ph.D., Union Theological Seminary

Professor West's teaching and research focus on liberative Christian social ethics related to issues of race, gender, and sexuality; African-American social thought; and social justice issues in church and society with an emphasis on violence against women, welfare policy, clergy ethics, and racism.

Sem. 203 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3082

  
Nancy Lynne Westfield
-Associate Professor of Religious Education
-Ph.D., The Union Institute

Professor Westfield's teaching and research interests include pedagogy, engaged pedagogy, African-American women's studies, womanist studies, spirituality, creativity, mysticism, and theological education.

Sem. 15 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage 
Tel: 973-408-3063

 S. Wesley Ariarajah
-Professor of Ecumenical Theology
-Ph.D., University of London, U.K.

Professor Ariarajah offers courses in the areas of ecu

Sem. 105 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3979

 Robert Corrington
-Professor of Philosophical Theology
-Ph.D., Drew University
*On leave Spring 2010

Professor Corrington’s teaching and research interests include philosophical cosmology; Protestant Liberalism; semiotics; depth-psychology; American Naturalism; and South Asian philosophy. In particular he is interested in the prospects of a world theology as grounded in a metaphysics of nature.

Davies House 203 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3682

 Catherine Keller
-Professor of Constructive Theology
-Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School

Professor Keller pursues constructive theology as a cultural practice. She uses process, poststructuralist, eco-feminist and postcolonial perspectives to develop the theopoetic spectrum of ancient Jewish and Christian themes in contemporary contexts.

Sem. 110 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3268

 Hyo-Dong Lee
-Assistant Professor of Theological Philosophy
-Ph.D., Vanderbilt University

Professor Lee's teaching and research interests lie in the area broadly defined as theology of religions and comparative theology, and more specifically, dialogue between the Christian/Western theological tradition and Northeast Asian religious thought, including Confucianism Daoism, Tonghak, etc. His interests extend also to postcolonial theories and European postmodern thought.

Sem. 22 :: E-mail :: Personal Webpage
Tel: 973-408-3129