Our PhD Students
Doctor of Philosophy
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Ren Aguila
Email Address: raguila@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Ecclesiology; Theological Methods; Contemporary Philosophical Hermeneutics; Diaspora Studies; Religion and the Arts; Public Theology; Liturgical Theology
Professional Website: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/renaguila
Biography: Ren’s philosophical and psychological background led him on a long and winding path to theology. After several years working in various fields, including cultural journalism, he studied at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. There, he became familiar with the history and experience of diaspora Filipinos in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Gonzalo Alers
Email Address: galers@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible & Cultures, ABD
Research Interests: New Testament Studies (The Gospels; The Book of Revelation); Early Christianity; Non-Canonical Literature; Postcolonial and Decolonial Theory; Intersectionality between decolonial thinking and New Testament narratives.
Dissertation Title: “Delinking from Babylon’s Epistemologies: Reading Revelation for a Puerto Rican Decolonial Biblical Hermeneutic”
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Michael Anderson
Email Address: manderson3@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion, ABD
Research Interests: Philosophies of friendship, desire, and intimacy; Ethics; Popular culture, esp. television and game studies; Queer Theory; Letters and letter-writing; Mysticism
Dissertation Title: “Friendship, a Heretical Practice”
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Gum Jat Awng
Email Address: gawng@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Postcolonial Theory; Liberation Theologies; Process Philosophy; New Materialisms
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Hunter Bragg
Email Address: hbragg@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion, ABD
Research Interests: Political Theology; Theologies and Practices of Christian Confession; Apophatic Theology; Theological Anthropology; the American Prison-Industrial Complex; American Plea Bargaining
Dissertation Title: “Condemning Whom We Do Not Know: A Political Theology of Plea Bargaining in American Criminal Justice”
Professional Website: https://drew.academia.edu/HBragg
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Benjamin Bixler
Email Address: bbixler@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: Identity formation in the Hebrew Bible; Gospels; Popular Culture; Critical Race Theory; Masculinity; Anabaptist/Mennonite Theology; Pedagogy
Professional Website: https://drew.academia.edu/BenjaminBixler
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Weizhen Chen
Email Address: wchen1@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Political Theology; Liberation Theology; Black Theology; Process Philosophy; Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies; Mohism; Politics of China
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Andrew Deeb
Email Address: adeeb@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: Hebrew Bible; Wisdom Literature; Trans Studies; Affect Theory; Bible and Popular Media
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Damien Pascal Domenack
Email Address: ddomenack@drew.edu
Program Area: Religion and Society
Research Interests: Black Atlantic; Dance and Performance; Christian Sexual EThics; Decoloniality, Critical Theory, Liberation Theology; LGBTQI+ Ministry; Pastoral Theology; Queer/Trans Theory
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Brigid Dwyer
Email Address: bdwyer@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: New Testament Studies; Pauline Studies; Spirit-Flesh Binary; Feminist and Queer Theories
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Hunter Edwards
Email Address: hedwards@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: Hebrew Bible; Queer Theory; Interplay of Narrative and Legal Code; Characterizations of God; Social Identity in Texts
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Lindsay Grass
Email Address: lgrass@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Radical Theology; Eschatology; Eroticism; Psychoanalytic feminism; Phenomenology of embodiment
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Eun Han
Email Address: ehan@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: Postcolonial Biblical Criticism; Memory Theory
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Wren Hillis
Email Address: lhillis@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Political Theology; Religion; Politics and Economics; Methodist and Wesleyan Studies
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Esther Inuwa
Email Address: einuwa@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: New Testament Studies; African/a studies; Womanist/Gender Hermeneutics; Postcolonial and Decolonial Theory; Revelation; Empire; Apocalyptic Studies
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Lisa Jarnot
Email Address: ljarnot@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Ecotheology; Process Theology; Anthropocene Studies
Professional Website: https://lisajarnotcom.wordpress.com/
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Nicholas A. Johnson
Email Address: njohnson2@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures, ABD
Research Interests: Pauline epistles; Revelation; Early Christian history; Intersections of Africana, postcolonial, and New Testament studies
Dissertation Title: “Idolatry in Romans and Revelation: Toward An Africana-Decolonial Hermeneutic of Images”
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Eunchul Jung
Email Address: ejung@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion, ABD
Research Interests: Free will; Subjectivity; German Idealism; Psychoanalysis; Critique of civilization; Phenomenology
Dissertation Title: “Phenomenology of Eros: Deconstruction of the Self and the Experience of Salvation”
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Ha Young Kang
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Political Theology; Process Philosophy; Postcolonial Theory; Women’s and Gender Studies; Confucianism; Daoism; Methodist and Wesleyan Studies
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Jung Ae Kim
Email Address: jkim19@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures, ABD
Research Interests: Hebrew Bible; Ecological Hermeneutics; Animal Studies; Feminist Studies
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Shin-Young Kim
Email Address: skim26@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Ecotheology; Political Theology; New Materialism
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Patrick A. Kelly
Email Address: pkelly1@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Environmental and Ecological Ethics; Roman Catholic Theology; Roman Catholic Social Teaching; Critical Theory; Continental Philosophy; Marxism; Feminism and Ecofeminism; Gender Studies
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Tsz Him Lai
Email Address: tlai@drew.edu
Program Area: Religion and Society, ABD
Research Interests: Liberation and Postcolonial Theologies; Christian Social Ethics; Asian and Hong Kong Christianities
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Tzu yu Lin
Email Address: tlin1@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible & Cultures
Research Interests : Gospels; Decolonial Theory; Taiwanese Contextual Interpretation; Postcolonial Theory; Political Activism; De-Chinization in Taiwan; CHTHONIC (Taiwanese heavy metal band)
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Hilary McKane
Email Address: hfloyd@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible & Cultures, ABD
Research Interests: Economics and the New Testament; Parables; Women in the Greco-Roman World
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J.D. Mechelke
Email Address: jmechelke@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Political Theology; Ecology and Religion; Continental Philosopy; Process Philosophy; Radical Theology; Queer Theory; Temporality and vocation in the Anthropocene
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abby mohaupt
Email Address: amohaupt@drew.edu
Program Area: Religion and Society, ABD
Research Interests: Climate Change; Social Movements; Religious leadership in the public sphere; Public Action; Critical Race Theory; Gender; Ecology; Reformed Theology
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Isabella Novsima
Email Address: inovsima@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Theology of Disability; Feminist Theology; Mental Health Studies; Disability Studies; Constructive Theology; Ecotheology; Theology of Trauma; Transpersonal Psychology; Christian Mystics
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Janet Okang (Jane)
Email Address: jokang@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: New Testament Studies; Comparative Study of Mealtime Fellowship in the New Testament; Greco-Roman Antiquity and West African Mealtime Traditions; Bible and Cultural Studies; The Portrait of Children in New Testament Discourses
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D. Scott Ostlund
Email Address: dostlund@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Christian Theological Ethics; Critical Whiteness Studies; U.S. Evangelical Studies; Liberation Theologies; Wesleyan-Methodist Studies
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Erin Parks
Email Address: eparks@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Affect Theory; Racism and Whiteness; New Materialisms; Pantheologies; Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies
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Brock Perry
Email Address: bperry@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion, ABD
Research Interests: Continental Philosophy; Gender and Sexuality Studies; History and Theories of the Secular and Critique; History of Christian Theology; Spirituality; Epistemologies of Truth; Activism and Social Change
Dissertation Title: “Critical Spirituality”
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Beth Quick
Email Address: bquick@drew.edu
Program Area: Religion and Society
Research Interests: Animal Studies; Christianity and Ecology; Ecogrief; Social Movements; Ecofeminism; Ecowomanism; Food Ethics
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Dawrell Rich
Email Address: drich@drew.edu
Program Area: Religion and Society
Research Interests: Religion and Ecology; Sociology of Religion; Environmental Justice; Social Movement Theory; Urban Studies; Black Church Studies; Black Liberation Theology
Professional Website: https://www.dawrellrich.com/
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Brandan J. Robertson
Email Address: brobertson@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: Sexuality and Gender in the New Testament; Masculinity Studies; Queer Theology; the Greco-Roman World
Professional Website: https://www.brandanrobertson.com/
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Kenia Vanessa Rodriguez
Email Address: krodriguez1@drew.edu
Program Area: Religion and Society
Research Interests: Liberation and Postcolonial Theologies; Decoloniality; Decolonial Feminist Theology; Mujerista Theology; Christian Social Ethics; Cultural Studies; Critical Race Theory; Bioethics in Latino/a communities
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Rose Sharon
Email Address: rsharon@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Process, Liberation, and Death of God Theologies; Anti-Racist and Abolitionist Praxis; Queer and Trans Studies; Integral Ecology; Critical Animal Studies; Anti- and Post-Capitalism; Mysticism and the Esoteric; Heresy; Comparative Religion; Decoloniality; Posthumanism
Professional Website: https://ingoodfaith.vision/
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Dan Siedell
Email Address: dsiedell@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Theological implications of images and artistic practices; negative theology; theopoetics and creativity; new materialism; the potential of curatorial practices for theological discourses
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Aung Lin Than
Email Address: sthan@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Process Philosophy; Postcolonial Theory; Women and Gender Studies; Liberation Theology; Black Theology; Interreligious Theologies; Southeast Asia Studies
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Sin Lung Tong
Program Area: Bible and Cultures
Research Interests: Hebrew Bible; Narrative Criticism; Affect Theory; Poststructuralism; Postcolonialism
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AJ Turner
Email Address: aturner1@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion, ABD
Research Interests: William James; Critical Theories; Ontological Pluralism; Sociocultural Psychoanalysis
Dissertation Title: “Radical Empiricism, Critical Theories, Agonistic Solidarity”
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Min Um
Email Address: mum@drew.edu
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interests: Ecotheology; the Theology of Karl Barth; Process Though; Liberation Theologies; Animal Ethics
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Amiel H. Wayne
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion, ABD
Research Interests: Philosophy of Religion; Phenomenology; Religion and Ecology; Aesthetics; Queer Theory
Professional Website: https://amielhartwayne.wordpress.com/
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Yajenlemla
Email Address: yyajenlemla@drew.edu
Program Area: Bible & Cultures
Research Interests: Bible and Cultural Studies; Empire Studies (NT Gospels and Revelation); Postcolonial Biblical Criticism; Decolonial (South)Asian Feminist Studies
Recent Alumni
Elyse Ambrose
Program Area: Religion and Society
Dissertation Title: “Black Queer Ethics: Integrative Communality as Liberative Christian Sexual Ethics”
Research Interests: Christian sexual ethics; Black queer ethics; Black feminism; Womanism; Black modernists; Black religious histories; Afro-diasporic spiritualities
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Lisa Asedillo
Program Area: Religion and Society
Dissertation Title: “Decolonial Hope as Praxis: Pedagogical Strategies of Freedom in the Philippines”
Research Interests: Race and Decoloniality; US-Philippine Relations/US Empire History; Asian American Christian Ethics/Transpacific Studies; Postcolonial Feminist Theo-Ethics; Queer of Color Critique
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Desmond C. Coleman
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Research Interest: Philosophical and Political Idealism; Africana Studies; Performance Studies
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Gabriel C. Crooks
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Dissertation Title: “Under Control: Theology, Mastery, and the Autopoiesis of Masculine Identities”
Research Interests: Theological Imagination; Gender-based violence; Genocide and Holocaust Studies; Pedagogy; Historical Theology
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Ericka Shawndricka Dunbar
Program Area: Bible & Cultures
Dissertation Title: “Trafficking Hadassah: An Africana Reading of Collective Trauma, Memory and Identity in the Book of Esther”
Research Interests: Religion and Social Change; Africana Biblical Studies; Africana Diaspora Studies; Trauma Studies; Ethics; Cultural Studies; Women’s Studies; Gender-based violence; Women and children in the Bible; Human trafficking discousrses; the role and impact of religion on individual and collective/cultural identities
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Luke Grote
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Dissertation Title: “The Self That Therefore I Am Not: Jacques Lacan, Zen Buddhism, and the Practice of Subjectivity”
Research Interests: Jacques Lacan, Zen Buddhism, Continental Philosophy, Spirituality
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Simeiqi He 何斯美琪
Program Area: Religion and Society
Dissertation Title: “‘The Living Flame of Love’: A Post-Critical Moral Theology of Marriage”
Research Interests: Theological Ethics/Moral Theology/Christian Ethics; Social Ethics; Catholic Social Thought; Comparative Religious Ethics; Spirituality and Mysticism; Continental Philosophy; Chinese Thought; Literary and Cultural Theory; Critical Theory; Marriage and Family; Gender and Sexuality; Environmental Ethics; Bioethics; Peace-building; Contemporary China
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Minenhle Nomalungelo Khumalo
Program Area: Bible & Cultures
Research Interests: Afro-pessimism; Afro-futurism; Literary Theory; Africana Biblical Hermeneutics; Aesthetics of Violence; Queer Theory; Marxism
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Alice Kim
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Dissertation Title: “Theology of Traumatic Affect: A Transformative Religious and Political Response to Trauma”
Research Interests: Process Philosophy; Reformed Theology; Trauma Studies; Genocide and Holocaust Studies; Affect Theory; Philosophical Ethics; Political Theology
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Seong Hyun Lee
Program Area: Religion and Society
Dissertation Title: “The Power of Communal Empathy: Moral Implications of Empathy from Pyschological and Care Ethics Perspectives in Responding to Sexual Violence in Faith-Based Community”
Research Interests: Pastoral Care and Counseling; Christian Social Ethics; Ethics of Care; Women’s and Gender Studies; Moral psychology and ethics of empathy; Interculturalism; Wesleyan Theology; Feminism and Digital Activism
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Jennifer Maidrand
Program Area: Bible & Cultures
Dissertation Title: “Excavating Promised Land: The Geopolitics of Scripturalization in Palestine-Israel”
Research Interests: Hebrew Bible; the Bible and geopolitics; Material culture; Feminist and Womanist hermeneutics; Decolonial study of religion; Religion and ecology
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Rory McEntee
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Dissertation Title: “For the Time Being: Religion, Secularity, (Inter)Spirituality, and Democracy”
Research Interests: Democracy; Pluralism; Comparative Philosophy and Religion; Comparative Theology; Science and Religion; Spirituality and Eco-Spirituality; Contemplative Studies; Political Philosophy; Critical Theory and Race; Constructions of ‘Religion’ and the Secular; Comparative Mysticism; Buddhism; Christian Contemplative Tradition
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Austin Roberts
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Dissertation Title: “Anthropocene Imaginaries: Geophilosophy, Political Theology, and the Planetary Future”
Research Interests: Process Philosophy; Political Theology; Ecotheology; Anthropocene Studies; Religious Naturalism; New Materialisms
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Lauren D. Sawyer
Program Area: Religion and Society
Research Interests: Feminist and Womanist social ethics; Sexual ethics; Youth and young adults; Evangelical purity culture; History of sexuality
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Elizabeth Siegelman
Program Area: Bible & Cultures
Dissertation Title: “Whose Gotta Have It? Race, Gender, and Violence in the Song of Songs”
Research Interests: Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the ancient Near East; Reading the Bible through the Lens of Trauma; the Bible and Incarceration; the Bible and Popular Culture
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Eric A. Thomas
Program Area: Bible & Cultures
Dissertation Title: “Queer of Color Biblical Criticism: Race, Sexuality and the New Testament”
Research Interests: Biblical hermeneutics; Queer theory; Africana and Black Religious Studies
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Max Thornton
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Dissertation Title: “Cyborg Trans/criptions: gender, disability, and the image of God”
Research Interests: Disability; queer theory; trans studies; STS; theological anthropology
Professional Website: https://maxthornton.me/
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O’neil Van Horn
Program Area: Theological and Philosophical Studies in Religion
Dissertation Title: “On the ground: terrestrial theopoetics, environmental justice, and the anthropocene”
Research Interests: Ecotheology; Political Theology; Process Philosophy; Poststructuralism; New Materialisms; Critical Race Studies; Queer Theory
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Kelsey Erin Wallace
Program Area: Bible & Cultures
Dissertation Title: “Remembering the Future: Exodus, Science Fiction, and the Strategies of Memory”
Research Interests: Science Fiction; Narratives of Violence; Grief and Cultural Memory; Gender and Sexuality; Hebrew Bible; Pop Culture
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Susan Woolever
Program Area: Religion and Society
Research Interests: Christian Social Ethics; Religious Ethics; Childist and Feminist Theory; Sexual Ethics; Trauma Theory; Mental Health