This program is a focal point for the historical study of religion at Emory. The aim is to enhance each student’s self-critical awareness of the diversity of fields and approaches in historical studies while helping the student to develop specialized competence.

The program focuses on three fields: early and medieval Christianity; early-modern and modern European thought; and religion in America. Each student specializes in whichever of these fields is best suited to the proposed dissertation topic, and the faculty help to plan a curriculum and a set of examinations that prepare the student for scholarship and teaching. The program itself offers courses in the three fields, but the student’s curriculum will normally include courses from other programs in the division and from other departments of the University. The program encourages students to acquire at least introductory competence in the history of a tradition other than Christianity (such as Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism).

The collegial focus of the program is a regular symposium at which faculty and students discuss problems in historiography and other matters of common interest.

Historical Studies Faculty

Lewis Ayres (D.Phil., Merton College, Oxford University, UK, 1994) Assistant Professor. Greek and Latin Trinitarian theology, Christology, and theology of Scripture in the fourth and fifth centuries.

E. Brooks Holifield (Ph.D., Yale University, 1970) Candler Professor of American Church History. Seventeenth-century American thought, theology in America.

Gary M. Laderman (Ph.D., University of California at Santa Barbara, 1994) Associate Professor. American religious history and culture.

Deborah Lipstadt (Ph.D., Brandeis University, 1976) Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies. Modern Jewish studies, history of the Holocaust, women in Judaism.

Gordon Newby (Ph.D., Brandeis University, 1966) Professor. Islam and Judaism.

David S. Pacini (Ph.D., Harvard University, 1979) Associate Professor. Modern European religious thought, history of philosophical theology, semio-critical literary and social theory.

Eric Reinders (Ph.D., University of California-Santa Barbara, 1997) Associate Professor. Chinese religion; discourses and practices of the body.

Philip L. Reynolds (Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1986) Aquinas Associate Professor of Catholic Theology. Chair of Historical Studies Program. Medieval theology and philosophy, scholasticism.

Russell E. Richey (Ph.D., Princeton University, 1970) Professor. American religious history; Methodism; comparative denominational studies; American civil or public religion.

Jonathan Strom (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1996) Associate Professor. History of Christianity, Reformation, Pietism.