Our program provides majors and minors breadth in the interdisciplinary study of religion from faculty across campus, including economics, history, political science, philosophy, anthropology, and many others fields.

Core Faculty

Donaldson

Brianne Donaldson
b.donaldson@uci.edu
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Shri Parshvanath Presidential Chair in Jain Studies and Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Interests: Jain studies, South Asian religions and philosophies, A.N. Whitehead's  Process philosophy of organism, critical animal studies, nonviolence theories, ecofeminism, multispecies ethics, and bioethics

Cereti

Carlogiovanni Cereti 
ccereti@uci.edu
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Presidential Chair in Zoroastrian Studies and Professor of Religious Studies and Classics
Interests: Zoroastrianism, Iranian Studies, comparative religious studies; eechatology & apocalyptics; Indo-Iranian mythology; interplay between tangible and intangible cultural heritage; material culture

 

Continuing Lecturers

Joe McKenna

Joe McKenna
mckenna@uci.edu 
Continuing Lecturer, Religious Studies and History
Interests: Western belief and unbelief; 19th-century British freethought; History of the devil idea; History of the God idea.
Professor McKenna has been teaching at UCI since 1999 and received the School of Humanities Non-Senate Faculty Teaching Award in 2020–21

 

Bojan Petrovic looking into the camera

Bojan Petrovic
bojan.petrovic@uci.edu
Continuing Lecturer, Religious Studies and Social Sciences
Interests: Islam and politics, the status of Muslims in western democracies, religion in international relations, and ethnic and religious intra-state conflicts with a geographic focus in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Central Asia.

 

Unit 18 Faculty (Lecturers)

Julius Bailey

Julius Bailey
Juliushbailey@gmail.com
Lecturer, Religious Studies 
Interests: African American Religious History, Religion in America, New Religious Movements, and Religion and Popular Culture

 

 

Christina Ghanbarpour

Christina Ghanbarpour
cghanbar@uci.edu 
Lecturer, Religious Studies, East Asian Studies, History
Interests: 19th- 20th century Japan, women, gender, sexuality, rural areas, modernization, material culture, everyday life history

Allen

Elizabeth Allen
eallen@uci.edu
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Professor of English
Interests: Comparative Literature; Religious Studies (Chaucer, Gower, 15th century poetry; exemplary literature, romance, chronicle, episodic form; intersections between ethics and politics, politics and religion; hospitality, sovereignty, legal and constitutional history of England)

 

bailey

Julius Bailey
juliushbailey@gmail.com

Lecturer, Religious Studies 
Interests: African American Religious History, Religion in America, New Religious Movements, and Religion and Popular Culture

 

 

Emily Baum
baume@uci.edu
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Professor of History
Interests: Modern China; history of medicine and psychiatry in China; comparative medical history; popular religion

 

Berberian

Houri Berberian
houri.berberian@uci.edu
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Director of the Armenian Studies Program and Meghrouni Family Chair in Armenian Studies and Professor of History
Interests: Modern Armenian and Middle Eastern History; revolution, women and gender

 

 

Betancourt

Roland Betancourt
roland.betancourt@uci.edu
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Chancellor's Fellow and Associate Professor of Art History
Interests: Byzantine Art, Visual Culture, and Theology; Critical Theory; Queer Theory; Popular Culture; Theme Parks; Simulacral Spaces

 

 

Canepa

Matthew Canepa
matthew.canepa@uci.edu
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Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djali Presidential Chair and Professor of Art History
Interests: Art and Archaeology of Persia and the Ancient Iranian World; Achaemenid, Seleucid, Arsacid, Sasanian empires; Hellenistic Iran and Central Asia; Eurasian late antiquity; cross-cultural interaction; critical theory

 

 

cereti

Carlogiovanni Cereti
ccereti@uci.edu
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Presidential Chair in Zoroastrian Studies and Professor of Religious Studies and Classics
Interests: Zoroastrianism, Iranian Studies, comparative religious studies; eechatology & apocalyptics; Indo-Iranian mythology; interplay between tangible and intangible cultural heritage; material culture

 

Carter

J. Kameron Carter
jc1@uci.edu
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Professor of African American Studies
Interests: Black study of religion, Blackness, race, colonialism, political theology and ecology

 

Chaturvedi

 

 

 

 

Vinayak Chaturvedi
vinayak@uci.edu
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Professor of History
Interests: South Asia, Social and Intellectual History

 

Chen

Yong Chen
y3chen@uci.edu
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Associate Dean of Curriculum and Student Services and Professor of History
Interests: Asian American Studies; Religious Studies(Asian American history and immigration, food and culture, U.S./China economic and cultural interactions)

 

Choi

Chungmoo Choi
cchoi@uci.edu
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Professor of Korean Culture
Interests: Religious Studies (modern Korea, postcolonial and colonial discourse, popular culture, anthropology)

 

colmenares

 

 

 

 

David Colmenares
dhcolmen@uci.edu
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Ph.D. Columbia University, Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature

Interests: Colonial Mexico, Mesoamerican Studies, Visual Culture, Antiquarianism, Early Modern Iberia

 

Coutin

Susan B. Coutin
scoutin@uci.edu
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Professor of Criminology, Law and Society
Interests: Religious Studies (law, culture, immigration, human rights, citizenship, political activism, sanctuary, Central America)

 

Daryaee

Touraj Daryaee
tdaryaee@uci.edu
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UCI Endowed Chair in Persian Studies and Culture and Professor of History
Interests: Religious Studies (Iran, Zoroastrianism, Ancient Medieval World)

 

Davis

Rebecca Davis
radavis@uci.edu
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https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5638
Associate Professor , Religious Studies
Interests: Religious Studies (Old and Middle English literature, Piers Plowman, medieval religious culture, women’s writing, medieval philosophy

 

Donaldson

Brianne Donaldson
b.donaldson@uci.edu
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Associate Professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies and Shri Parshvanath Presidential Chair in Jain Studies
Interests: Jainism, South Asian Religions and Philosophy, Ethics/Bioethics, Critical Animal Studies, Whitehead's Process-relational Philosophy

 

gamber

John Gamber
john.gamber@uci.edu
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Ph.D. UC Santa Barbara, Associate Professor,Comparative Literature

Interests: Environmental Humanities, Ethnic Studies, Settler Colonialism, Native American Studies

 

ghanbarpour

 

Christina Ghanbarpour
cgharbr@uci.edu

Lecturer, Religious Studies, East Asian Studies, History
Interests: 19th- 20th century Japan, women, gender, sexuality, rural areas, modernization, material culture, everyday life history

 

Gianapopolus

Zina Giannopoulou
zgiannop@uci.edu
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Associate Professor, Classics
Interests: Plato; 20th and 21st centuries classical receptions (esp. in prose and film); Greek tragedy and epic; philosophy and fiction; narrative; cognitive Classics; medical humanities; psychoanalysis and critical theory

 

Hamdy

Sherine Farouk Hamdy
shamdy@uci.edu
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Professor, Anthropology
Interests: bioethics, medical anthropology, comics, Arab world, Egypt, SWANA diaspora in North America, narrative, ethno-fiction

 

Hundle

Anneeth Kaur Hundle
ahundle@uci.edu
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Presidential Chair of Sikh Studies and Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Interests: Religious Studies, Sikh Studies; African and South Asian diaspora studies;, Afro-Asianism; citizenship, race and decolonization; , minoritization and community formation; postcolonial and transnational feminisms, gender and sexuality; university studies; , Uganda, East Africa, Indian Ocean, global south

 

Karanika

Andromache Karanika
karanika@uci.edu
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Department Chair and Associate Professor of Classics
Interests: Religious Studies (Greek epic poetry, Greek lyric, folklore)

 

Jeffrey Kopstein

Jeffrey Kopstein
kopstein@uci.edu
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Department Chair and Professor of Political Science
Interests: Religious Studies

 

Lee

James K. Lee
jkl@uci.edu
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Professor of Asian American Studies
Interests: Culture and Theory; Religious Studies (Asian American literature and culture, contemporary U.S. literature, race and ethnic studies, urban studies, religious studies)

 

Levine

Daniel Levine
daniel.levine@moishehouse.org
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Lecturer
Interests: Hebrew Bible, Talmud, Jewish Philosophy in the Medieval and Modern ages, Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism, American Jewish History

 

LeVine

Mark LeVine
mlevine@uci.edu
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Professor of History
Interests: Culture and Theory; Religious Studies (modern Middle Eastern history, Islamic studies, histories of empire and globalization)

 

Lewis

Jayne Elizabeth Lewis
jelewis@uci.edu
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Professor of English
Interests: Religious Studies (literature and medicine, restoration and 18th century British literature, literature of the supernatural and gothic fiction, history and/of fiction, atmosphere as literary concept and construct within natural philosophy)

 

Lupton

Julia R. Lupton
jrlupton@uci.edu
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Associate Dean for Research and Professor of English
Interests: Comparative Literature; Education; Religious Studies (Renaissance literature, literature and psychology)

 

Lynch

Cecelia M. Lynch
clynch@uci.edu
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Professor of Political Science
Interests: Religious Studies (international relations, religion and ethics; social movements and civil society actors; humanitarianism)

 

JB Manchak

JB Manchak
jmanchak@uci.edu
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Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science
Interests: Religious Studies

 

 

Michael McBride

Michael McBride
mcbride@uci.edu
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Professor of Economics
Interests: Logic and Philosophy of Science; Religious Studies

 

mckenna

Joe McKenna
mckenna@uci.edu
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Continuing Lecturer, Religious Studies and History
Interests: Western belief and unbelief; 19th-century British freethought; History of the devil idea; History of the God idea.
Professor McKenna has been teaching at UCI since 1999 and received the School of Humanities Non-Senate Faculty Teaching Award in 2020–21

 

McLoughlin

Nancy Ann McLoughlin
nmclough@uci.edu
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Associate Professor of History
Interests: European Languages and Studies; Religious Studies (late Medieval Europe, intellectual history, gender)

 

petrovic

Bojan Petrovic
bojan.petrovic@uci.edu
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Continuing Lecturer, Religious Studies and Social Sciences
Interests: Islam and politics, the status of Muslims in western democracies, religion in international relations, and ethnic and religious intra-state conflicts with a geographic focus in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Central Asia.

 

Rasul Miller

Rasul Miller
rasulm@uci.edu
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Assistant Professor of History
Interests: 20th Century African American History, Islam in the Atlantic World, Black Internationalism

 

Pantelia

Maria C. Pantelia
mcpantel@uci.edu
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Professor of Classics & Director of Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
Interests: Religious Studies (Greek epic, Hellenistic poetry, digital technologies in the humanities)

 

Patel

Alka Patel
alkap@uci.edu
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 Professor of Art History
Interests: History; Religious Studies;, Visual Studies (South Asian and Islamic art and architecture, historiographies, Islamic diasporas in Cuba)

 

Jon Pitt

John Pit
jpitt@uci.edu
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Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies
Interests: Japanese literature, Japanese cinema, Japanese sound media, critical plant studies, environmental humanities, environmental media theory

Adrian Preda

Adrian Preda
apreda@hs.uci.edu
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Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Psychiatry & Human Behavior
Interests: schizophrenia, Alzheimer's dementia, clinical trials methodology

 

Richardson

Gary Richardson
garyr@uci.edu
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Professor of Economics
Interests: European Languages and Studies; Religious Studies

 

Sameh

Catherine Zehra Sameh
csameh@uci.edu
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Associate Professor, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Interests:I ranian feminism; human rights; transnational feminisms; gender and social movements in the Middle East and Muslim world; Islam; women of color feminisms

 

 

Ian Straughn

Ian Straughn
ian.straughn@uci.edu
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Assistant Professor of Teaching of Anthropology
Interests: Religious Studies

 Published Books

 

 

Varzi

Roxanne Varzi
rvarzi@uci.edu
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Professor of Anthropology and Film & Media Studies
Interests: Anthropology, multi-modal and visual, Iran, Media, War, sound ethnography, Film studies, creative and experimental writing, experimental ethnography, theate
r

 

woman smiling

Carol M. Burke
cburke@uci.edu
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Professor of English
Interests: Literary And Cultural Theory; Literary Journalism; New Media Studies

 

Chiampi

James T. Chiampi
jtchiamp@uci.edu
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Professor of Italian, French & Italian
Interests: Italian Renaissance literature, Dante

 Published Books

Michael Fuller

Michael Fuller
mafuller@uci.edu
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Professor of East Asian Studies
Interests: Chinese; Religious Studies (Chinese poetry and poetics, the cultural and intellectual contexts for poetry, aesthetic theory, linguistic issues in classical Chinese)

Guo

Qitao Guo
guoq@uci.edu
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Professor of History
Interests: Religious Studies (social, cultural, and religious history of pre-modern China, Ming and Qing dynasties)

 

Kent

Bonnie D. Kent
bkent@uci.edu
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Professor, Philosophy
Interests: Ethics, Moral Psychology, Action Theory, Medieval Philosophy and Theology

 Published Books

 

Klein

Susan Blakeley Klein
sbklein@uci.edu
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Professor of Japanese Studies
Interests: Religious Studies (premodern and modern theater and dance, Japanese religions, feminist critical theory)

 

Leonard

Karen B. Leonard
kbleonar@uci.edu
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Professor Emerita of Philosophy
Interests: Social history of India, caste, ethnicity and gender, Asian-Americans in the United States

 

Mazumdar

Sanjoy Mazumdar
mazumdar@uci.edu
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https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2421
Interests: Environmental Design Research - Cultural Aspects, Environmental Psychology, Architecture, Planning, Organizational Studies, Work Environments, Home Environments, Ethnic Neighborhoods.

Miles

John Miles
milesj@uci.edu
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Professor Emeritus of English
Interests: Religion, literature, and international relations. Western scriptures (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) as literature. Religious poetry and music. Religion, science, and the environment.

                                 Published Books

Miles

Margaret Miles
mmmiles@uci.edu
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Professor Emerita of Art History
Interests: Religious Studies; Visual Studies (Greek and Roman art, archaeology)

 Published Books

Keith L. Nelson

Keith L. Nelson
klnelson@uci.edu
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Professor Emeritus of History
Interests: Religious Studies (international relations, America and the world, impact of war studies, pre-history)

 Published Books

Stokols

Daniel Stokols
dstokols@uci.edu
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Professor Emeritus of Psychological Science; Program in Public Health
Interests: Religion, literature, and international relations. Western scriptures (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) as literature. Religious poetry and music. Religion, science, and the environment.

Roger Walsh headshot

Roger Walsh
rwalsh@uci.edu
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Professor, Psychiatry & Human Behavior
Interests: Asian psychologies, Asian philosophies, Asian religions, Buddhism, ecology, meditation,exceptional psychological wellbeing, postconventional development, transpersonal psychology