Faculty Updates 2023
Associate Professor Megan Bryson took over as chair of the Asian Studies Program in fall 2023, and she was also named a Lindsay Young Professor in recognition of her research accomplishments. Her co-edited book, Buddhist Masculinities, was published by Columbia University Press in September 2023, and she is currently completing her second monograph, tentatively titled, Buddhism on the Southern Silk Road. In addition to presenting her work at institutions such as Princeton, Harvard, and Cornell, Professor Bryson has continued to publish articles on Asian religions for The Conversation, which reaches a broad public audience.
Manuela Ceballos has been busy completing the manuscript of her first monograph Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Western Mediterranean. In addition, she has been busy co-editing a book on multilingualism and early Islam titled Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam (forthcoming, Brepols), and will present her translation of Moroccan author Abdelfattah Kilito’s The Tongue of Adam and Other Essays, which is in press with Sílaba Editores, at the Medellín (Colombia) Book Fair in September. She is on leave during 2023–2024 with an extremely prestigious National Endowment in the Humanities faculty fellowship that was awarded for her book project.
During his time at the Humanities Center from fall 2022 to spring 2023, Professor Larry Perry focused on several research projects concerning Black spiritual leftist history. One of his main tasks was revising the manuscript A Black Spiritual Leftist: Howard Thurman and the Religious Left’s Unfinished Business of Race Relations. This work explored Howard Thurman’s life, especially his experiences in Florida, at Morehouse College, in San Francisco, and Boston University. In addition to this, Perry wrote a book chapter on “The New Negro as Pastor.” This chapter discussed the emergence of Black Technocratic Pastors in the 1920s and 1930s. His work on this topic was done in collaboration with the Duke Divinity School’s Black Pastoral Research Collective. Perry also took part in archival work, particularly during his time at Boston University, Clark Atlanta University at the Library of Congress. At each of these spaces Perry procured crucial documents that added layers to his research. These efforts not only underscored Perry’s commitment to thorough research but also his ability to seamlessly integrate resources from multiple renowned institutions. Beyond his personal research, Perry actively engaged with his colleagues at the Humanities Center. He provided them with valuable insights on their projects, contributing to the collaborative nature of the center. Currently, Perry is working on an article about “The Black Spiritual Left in the Civil Rights Movement.” Given his past work, there’s no doubt that this will be another significant contribution to the field.
Perhaps the most notable recent change for Tina Shepardson, Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, is that on July 31, after five years as department head, she passed the leadership of the department to her colleague Helene Sinnreich and started a much-anticipated research leave whose main purpose is to finish her third monograph, A Memory of Violence: The Radicalization of Religious Difference in the Middle East (451-750 CE). She is excited to return to her research on early Christianity, which she presented this summer at Yale and will present this fall at conferences at UC-Santa Barbara and in San Antonio. In the year ahead, she has four articles scheduled to be published and five new essays due to editors. She looks forward to seeing the department continue to thrive under her colleagues’ new leadership, and to welcoming our new colleagues and students to our religious studies community.
Associate Professor Joseph Witt has been busy building community and university connections in his first year at UT. In 2023, he helped convene the Just Environments Research Seminar and gave invited lectures for the UT OneHealth Initiative and the Church Street United Methodist Church Summer Lecture Series. He also helped organize and host a workshop bringing educators and researchers interested in community-engaged methodologies to Knoxville to develop a new collaborative research project on community-engaged pedagogy in religious studies. In spring 2023, and with assistance from the Office of Community Engagement and Outreach, Joe coordinated community-engaged activities between his classes and community groups/projects such as Appalachian Voices, Battlefield Farm, and Black in Appalachia. Finally, Witt introduced his new course, REST 343 Religion, Nature and Ethics, which he hopes will provide a site for further development of community-engaged teaching and research.