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Classics & Religious Studies

Current Position:

• University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Assistant Professor, 2004-

Education:

• Ph.D--Temple University, Religion (with Distinction), 2004
• BA--University of Otago, New Zealand, (1st Class Hons), History & Religious Studies, 1992

Expertise and Research Interest:

• Modern Islam
• Christian-Muslim Relations
• Methodologies for Religious Studies
• Problematizing the notion of religious fundamentalism

Languages:

• Arabic
• French (reading)
• German (reading)

Courses (surveys):

• Introduction to World Religions
• Introduction to Islam

Courses (seminars, language courses):

• History of Comparative Religion
• Islam in the Modern World
• Fundamentalism, Religion, and Politics
• The Qur'an
• Arabic I and II (accelerated 300-level courses in Modern Standard Arabic)

Memberships:

• American Academy of Religion
• Society of Biblical Literature
• Middle Eastern Studies Association
• American Political Science Association

Honors and Awards (last 5 years):

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award, 2009
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln Teaching Council and Parents Association Recognition Award, 2008
• Univeristy of Nebraska-Lincoln, Grant in Aid, 2007
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Layman Award, 2005

Previous Positions:

• 2003-2003--Adjunct Assistant Faculty, Lehigh University
• 2002--Adjunct Assistant Faculty, Franklin and Marshall College

Refereed Publications - Book:

• Christian Criticisms, Islamic Proofs: Rashid Rida's Modernist Defence of Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008)

Refereed Publications -- articles solicited, submitted, and under review:

• "Rethinking the "Fundamentals" of Fundamentalism, Dualism, Literalism, Golden Age-ism"

  This article was solicited by Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR):
  http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/
  This article is under review at that journal.

• "Researching "the Scripture of the Other": Niqula Ya'qub Ghibril's Researches of the Mujtahids and Rashid Rida's Rejoinder"

  This article is based upon a paper presented at the 2007 national AAR/SBL meeting.
  It was solicited by Comparative Islamic Studies:
  http:equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/CIS
  A preliminary version of the article is under review at that journal.

Conference Papers:

• "Egypt 1898-1914: Christian Tafsiir, Muslim Biblical Criticism"
  2007 American Academy of Religion Society of biblical Literature Nat. Meeting, San Diego, 11/18/07
• "Rethinking the "Fundamentals" of Fundamentalism: Dualism, Literalsim, Golden Age-ism"
  2006 American Academy of Religion National Meeting, Washington DC, 11/19/2006
• "Fundamentalism Revised: Mawdudi, Khomeini, and the Fundamentalist Paradigm"
  2006 Midwest American Political Science Association National Meeting, Chicago, 04/20/2006
• "Islamic Da'wah and "the Religion of the Other": Rashid Rida's Revision of Islamic Exclusivism"
  2004 American Academy of Religion National Meeting, San Antonio, TX, 11/23/2004.
• "Teaching Islamic Fundamentalism After 9/11"
  2003 American Academy of Religion Mid-Atlantic Meeting, New Brunswick, NJ, 03/14/2003

Selected Invited Lectures

• "Islam and Modernity" (two lectures)
  Midland Lutheran College Forum on the Arts and Humanities, Fremont, NE. 07/04/06-08/04/06
• "Chrisitan Criticisms, Islamic Proofs: Rashid Rida's Rationalist Defense of Islam"
  Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, 02/26/04
• "Jihad in Islam"
  Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, 05/07/02 (also respondent to keynote address by R. Scott Appleby)
• "Islamic Modernities"
  Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, 04/26/2002
• "Rethinking the "fundamentals" of Islamic Fundamentalism"
  St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA, 09/23/2001

Committees:

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Academic Senate, 2004-2007
• Classics & Religious Studies Assessment Committee, 2006-2007