Skip Navigation

People

Skip Side Navigation

Internal Religious Studies Faculty

Rangar Cline is a historian of the later Roman Empire with research and teaching interests in Roman religions, epigraphy, and archaeology.  His research focuses on the relationship between Greek and Roman religions, early Christianity, and Judaism in the Roman world.  His book Ancient Angels, about angel veneration in the Roman Empire, was published with Brill Press (Leiden, March 2011) in the series “Religions in the Graeco-Roman World.”   His current book project examines the economics of pilgrimage. Click here for Prof. Cline's website.   

Religious Studies | rangar.cline@ou.edu | Office: ROBT 146 |

(405) 325-5041

Geoffrey Goble

Geoffrey Goble joined the RELS faculty in the Fall of 2016, from Washington University in St. Louis, where he taught Buddhism and East Asian Religions.  In addition to his introduction to Buddhism, he has introduced courses on Daoism, Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Religions, and East Asian Religions. Dr. Goble graduated from OU with a Letters degree, earned his M.A. at the University of Virginia, and his Ph.D. was completed at Indiana University.  For more information on Dr. Goble's research and teaching interests, see his website here.

Religious Studies | gcgoble@ou.edu | Office: ROBT 138 

Headshot of Wendy Mallette

Wendy Mallette is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies and a graduate certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Yale University after receiving a M.A.R. from Yale Divinity School and a B.A. from Valparaiso University. She is currently working on a book manuscript, “Lesbian Feminist Killjoys: Sin, Pessimism, and Queer Histories,” that draws on the archives of lesbian feminist public cultures of the 1960s through 1980s to intervene in conversations around negativity, sin, and affect in queer studies and religious studies. More broadly, her research brings critical theories of gender, sexuality, race, and animality to bear on questions of doctrine and method in religious studies and Christian theology. Her published work can be found in Women’s Studies Quarterly, the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, Feminist Theology, and Religion Dispatches. She teaches courses, including Queer Religion; Animals, Art, and Religion; Introduction to Christianity, and Introduction to Religious Studies.

Religious Studies | wendy.mallette@ou.edu | Office: ROBT 140

Deonnie Moodie

Deonnie Moodie is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.  She earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Harvard University and M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School. She has a B. A. from Hope College, where she majored in International Studies. Dr. Moodie is an ethnographer and historian of religion specializing in South Asia and its global connections. She is especially interested in how religious ideas and practices entwine with political and economic discourse, re-shaping one another in distinctive ways in the modern world. At OU, Prof. Moodie teaches Introduction to Religious Studies; Approaches to the Study of Religion; Introduction to Hinduism; Religion and Nationalism in India; Money, Power, and God(s):  Religion and Economy East and West; and Capstone. For more information about her research, click here

Religious Studies | dmoodie@ou.edu | Office: ROBT 141 | (405) 325-5143

David Vishanoff

David Vishanoff earned his Ph.D. in West and South Asian Religions, with a focus on Islamic thought, at Emory University, after completing an M.A. in Religious Studies at the University of Colorado. His research is principally concerned with how religious people interpret and conceptualize sacred texts—both their own, and those of other religious traditions. His publications have dealt with Islamic thought, including the early history of Islamic legal theory (The Formation of Islamic Hermeneutics: How Sunni Legal Theorists Imagined a Revealed Law), and with interactions between religious communities, including Muslim rewritings of the Psalms of David. He is presently studying modern Qur’anic hermeneutics, beginning with recent developments in Indonesia, where he spent the spring of 2013 as a Fulbright senior scholar. He teaches upper-level courses on The Qur’an, Islamic Law, and Islamic Theology, as well as comparative courses such as Jesus in the World’s Religions.  Click here for Prof. Vishanoff's website. 

Religious Studies | vishanoff@ou.edu | Office: ROBT 119

Current Adjunct Instructors


 

Emilie Casey

Lecturer, Introduction to Religious Studies
Email: emilie.casey@ou.edu 

 

Robb Young

Lecturer, Introduction to Religious Studies
Email: Robb.A.Young-1@ou.edu

 

Staff

Rebecca Hall-Davis headshot

Rebecca Hall-Davis serves the Department of Religious Studies as Administrative/Financial Coordinator.  She has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Management Information Systems, a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Master of Arts in History with a focus on early modern English religion.

 

Religious Studies | rebeccahd@ou.edu | Office: ROBT 120 | (405) 325-4594

Religious Studies Advisor

Headshot of Jennie Lazar

 

Jennie Lazar in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences is the advisor for Religious Studies.  You can find her information here.  

Jennie is located in Ellison Hall, Room 124, and Religious Studies majors and minors are encouraged to utilize her as a resource. You can reach Jennie at jlazar@ou.edu and you can schedule an appointment with her on iAdvise.

Core Faculty

The Department of Religious Studies is governed by both internal and core voting faculty.  To be eligible to serve on the core voting faculty, members must regularly teach courses in the Religious Studies curriculum and attend departmental meetings.  

Faculty, if you are interested in becoming a member of the Religious Studies Core Faculty, you may apply here.

You may also review the RELS Faculty Guidelines.

 

Thomas Burns

Thomas Burns

Professor

Email: tburns@ou.edu

Office: Kaufman 323

Research: Religion and the Environment

 

Marie Dallam

Marie Dallam

Honors Professor of American Religion and Culture

Email: mwdallam@ou.edu

Office: Honors College, Boren Hall 160

Research: American Religion and Culture

 

Alan Levenson

Alan Levenson

Director, Schusterman/Josey Chair in Judaic History

Email: alevenson@ou.edu

Office: DAHT 305E

Research: Jewish Intellectual, Literary, and Religious History

 

Roberta Magnusson

Roberta Magnusson

Associate Professor

Email: rmagnusson@ou.edu

Office: DAHT 822

Research: Medieval European and Italian History

 

Bala Saho

Bala Saho

Associate Professor

Email:  bsaho1@ou.edu

Office:  DAHT 412

Research:  African History, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Colonialism

 

Jane Wickersham

Jane Wickersham

Associate Professor

Email: jwickersham@ou.edu

Office: DAHT 806

Research: Italian and Reformation History

Affiliated Faculty

All OU faculty members who have an interest in the Department of Religious Studies and wish to be affiliated with it, are eligible to be so designated, and can participate in faculty meetings, job talks, deliberations, and other faculty functions. Affiliated faculty do not participate as voting faculty.

Peter Barker headshot

 

Peter Barker

History of Science

Email: barkerp@ou.edu

David Chappell headshot

 

David Chappell

History

Email: dchappell@ou.edu

Jeanette Davidson headshot

 

Jeanette R. Davidson

African & African American Studies

Email: jrdavidson@ou.edu

R.C. Davis headshot

 

R.C. Davis

English, World Literature Today

Email: rcdavis@ou.edu

Greg Graham headshot

 

Greg Graham

African & African-American Studies

Email: gregagraham@ou.edu

Michael Givel headshot

Michael Givel

Political Science

Email: mgivel@ou.edu

kyle harper headshot

 

Kyle Harper

Classics and Letters

Email: kyleharper@ou.edu

Jill Irvine headshot

 

Jill Irvine

International and Area Studies

Email: jill.irvine@ou.edu

Scott Johnson Headshot

 

Scott Johnson

Classics and Letters

Email: sfj@ou.edu

Neal Judisch headshot

 

Neal Judisch

Philosophy

Email: neal.judisch@ou.edu

Charles Kenney headshot

 

Charles Kenney

Political Science

Email: ckenney@ou.edu

Ori Kritz headshot

 

Ori Kritz

Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics

Email: okritz@ou.edu

Joshua Landis headshot

 

Joshua Landis

International and Area Studies, Director of Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies and Director Center of Middle East Studies

Email: landis@ou.edu


 

Kimberly Marshall

Anthropology, OU Arts and Humanities Forum Faculty Director 

Email: kjm@ou.edu


 

Kieran Mullen

Physics and Astronomy 

Email: kieran@ou.edu


 

Sean P. O'Neill

Anthropology

Email: Sean.P.O-Neill-1@ou.edu


 

Amy Olberding

Philosophy

Email: aolberding@ou.edu


 

Sam Perry

Sociology

Email: samperry@ou.edu


 

Carrie Schroeder

Women's and Gender Studies

Email: ctschroeder@ou.edu


 

Rhona Seidelman

History

Email: rds@ou.edu


 

Shmuel Shepkaru

History

Email: shepkaru@ou.edu


 

Ann-Marie Szymanski

Political Science

Email: ams@ou.edu


 

Zev Trachtenberg

Philosophy, Director of Environmental Studies Program

Email: ztrachtenberg@ou.edu


 

Rienk Vermij

History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

Email: rienk.vermij@ou.edu


 

Stephen P. Weldon

History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

Email: spweldon@ou.edu


 

Musharraf Zaman

Petroleum and Geological Engineering

Email: zaman@ou.edu


Emeritus Faculty

 

Charles Kimball

Charles Kimball is Presidential Professor Emeritus, and Former Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Between 1996 and 2008, he served as Chair of the Department of Religion and the Divinity School at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. During the 2006 fall term, Dr. Kimball was the Rita and William Bell Visiting Professor at the University of Tulsa. He is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and holds the M.Div. degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He received his Th.D. from Harvard University in comparative religion with specialization in Islamic studies.  Prof. Kimball became the Chair of the Religious Studies Department in 2008, and retired in 2020. Click here for Prof. Kimball's website. 

Religious Studies | kimball@ou.edu | Office: ROBT 112

NameDepartmentEmail
Barbara BoydChristianity, Historical Jesusbarbaraboyd@ou.edu
Allen HertzkePolitical Scienceahertzke@ou.edu
Dan Snell Ancient Near Eastdcsnell@ou.edu
Norman StillmanJudaic Studies
nstillman@ou.edu
Alan VelieEarly Modern English Literature, Native American Literaturealanvelie.ou.edu
Linda ZagzebskiPhilosophylzagzebski@ou.edu