Muntazir is a Ph.D. student in Islam, Society, and Culture. He has a MSt. in Modern South Asian Studies from Oxford University and a post-graduate diploma in Islamic Studies and Humanities from the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. He is broadly interested in religious identity formation, orality and textuality in religious cultures and the role of space and place in religious traditions of ‘borderlands’ in South and Central Asia from the 1600s to the present. His current research seeks to apply spatial theory and methodologies to colonial boundary-making strategies (boundary commissions, surveys, road building, trade regulation and production of ‘trans-frontier’ information) in the ‘greater Badakhshan’ region during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in order to map entanglements of state actions with conceptions of religious space, self, and society.

Aseel is a 6^th year PhD Candidate in Religious Studies, Brown University, and holds a BA in Political Science from the American University in Cairo. She is interested in Islamic political thought, ethics, and urban affect, and employs critical theory in the study of modern Islamic subjectivities, and her own projects of constructive theology. She has published a historiographic article with The Graduate Journal of Harvard Divinity School, titled “The 'Secular' in Anglophone Scholarship on Premodern Islam”. Her article “Blessed Be the Strangers: An Islamic Ethical Framework for the Anthropocene” is under review with the Journal of Interreligious Studies, and she has a forthcoming chapter with the Arab Institute for Research and Policy on the military Egyptian regime in power since 2013. Her dissertation examines the use of the dual concept of altamkīn walistiḍʿāf (divine empowerment and disempowerment) in the works and practices of Egyptian Islamists and their transnational networks. She considers how Islamist activists and thinkers have employed this concept to theorise questions of subaltern positionality, disempowerment, social change, sociological theory, and the attainment of political agency. She examines how this theorisation takes the form of a civilisational framework that animates a certain philosophy of history, a hermeneutic engagement with the Qur’an and the Prophetic Sīrah (biography), and provides the grammar through which generations of Islamists have strategized and practiced religious reform and social change. Her dissertation argues that whilst 20^th century Islamists have cast their reform praxis through the lens of seeking divine empowerment through what were generally considered sunan Allah filumam wal taghyīr (cosmic rules of society and change), the traumatic violence of the 2013 Rab’aa massacre and the loss of revolutionary hope has generated a desire to revisit the concept of disempowerment, and to imbue it with a new sense of agency and religious meaning. Her dissertation therefore analyses Egyptian Islamist self-making at the intersection of political theology, modern biopolitics, scientism, textual hermeneutics, trauma theory, class, and postcolonial theory. 

Rhitama is a doctoral student in Islam, Society and Culture.  Her work explores pre-modern Sufi travel across the Silk Roads from South Asian perspectives, with a focus on performance and textual traditions in the Chishti Sufi Dargah spaces.  She has majored in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, India.  She holds a M. Phil on the "Reception of the Sufi Landscape in Framing Resistance in South Asia: From Pre-Modern to Progressive Urdu Poetry" from the Department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies, Delhi University.  Rhitama's areas of interest include Reception Studies, Sufism, Islam, and South Asian Studies.  She is working on a book chapter on South Asian Sufi material culture and the making of sacred geography. 

Mikail Berg is a PhD student in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean track.  His work focuses on the intersection of race, ethnography and religion in the ancient world, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean. He completed his ThM at Vancouver School of Theology looking at the Syriac Short Recension of Ignatius of Antioch.  Mikail also holds a MATS in the History of Christianity from Regent College (Vancouver, Canada) and a BA in Intercultural Studies with a concentration in the Middle East from Northwest University (Seattle, WA).  He grew up in the Pacific Northwest and enjoys exploring the outdoors with his family and trying new recipes.  

Josiah S. Bisbee is a graduate of Yale University, where he completed an MAR in Second Temple Judaism and is now a PhD candidate at Brown University as a RAM student, concentrating in Ancient Israelite religion.  He has particular interest in the reception history and use of the Hebrew Bible in late antique Judaism, specifically in the fields of Rabbinic literature, so-called "Jewish Mysticism" and "Magic," as well as later use of the Hebrew Bible in Medieval "Jewish Mysticism" and Kabbalah.  His current dissertation, tentatively titled "Innumerable Gods in Heaven: Divine Hierarchies from the Hebrew Bible to the Hekhalot Literature" explores various conceptions of divine hierarchies from AWA to late antiquity, while interrogating evolutionary theories regarding the so-called emergence of monotheism, as well as the "angelification" of YHWH's divine council and "demonization" of rival deities in the HB, Second Temple Judaism, and late antique/early medieval Jewish texts.

Angel Faith Calvin is a PhD student in Religion and Critical Thought. Her work lies at the intersection of theory, ethics, and philosophy and involves themes of faith, anarchism, desire, progress, eschatology, and transcendence–and particularly as these themes relate to the lives and subjectivities of black women. Angel is interested in expanding the methodologies used within the philosophical field of religious studies to include the literary and speculative. She incorporates the tradition of black women’s literature in dialogue with more canonical thinkers in the field to do this very work. 

Angel received her Master’s in Theological Studies from Harvard University and her B.A. in Politics and African-American & African Studies from the University of Virginia. 

Nicole is a PhD student in Religion and Critical Thought. She researches the intersection of gender transition and religious conversion in the contemporary United States, with a focus on trans converts to Judaism. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Carleton College and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School.

Tessa is a PhD student in Religion and Critical Thought. Her work integrates perspectives from psychoanalysis, continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and political theory. She earned her BA in Religious Studies and Biology from Pomona College, and a MFA in creative writing from Oregon State University.

Bailey is a third-year PhD student in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean track concentrating in Christianity in Late Antiquity.  Her research focuses on the use of violence, sexuality, and trauma in late antique Christian literature.  She is also broadly interested in theories of affect and embodiment.  Before coming to Brown, she received an MA in Religion from Yale Divinity School. 

Tim is a PhD candidate in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean track. He entered the program in 2020 after completing an M.A.R. in Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School. His research focuses on ancient Israelite religion, the composition of the Bible, and early biblical interpretation. His dissertation in progress, “The Reception of the Pentateuchal Tithing Laws Before the Christian Era,” traces the very earliest allusions to and interpretations of the various laws in the Pentateuch requiring one-tenth of one’s income to be given to priests and other socio-economically vulnerable parties.

Jennifer focuses on modern philosophical and religious ethics, political theory, and Jewish thought.  She is interested in questions at the intersection of political theology and ethical formation, concerning the relationship of absolute politics and such things as the attention, affective orientations, spiritual practices, and relationality of the self.  Jennifer received an M.A. from the University of Chicago Divinity School prior to Brown. 

Tali is a PhD candidate in ART. She earned her BA from Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), with a degree in Chinese language. She also earned an MA from BLCU in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language and an additional MA in East Asian Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. Her intellectual interests are related to women’s religious lives and religious praxis during the Song dynasty (960-1279). More specifically, she is interested in the interrelation of gender and religious spaces and places in the Jiangnan area (Southeast China) during the Southern Song (1127-1279). Her research employs a variety of sources including geographical materials such as local gazetteers,narratives from the Song’s largest zhiguai (tales of the strange) collection, The Record of the Listener, as well as miscellaneous writings (biji) by Song literati. Some of the questions she is interested in are related to women’s mobility through the landscape, their participation in religious meaning-making in relation to religious spaces such as temples and shrines, and the way in which gender relations might have shaped religious spaces and places (and vice versa).       

Patryk Imielski is a first-year PhD student in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean track. His academic interests centre on late antique Christian literature and their use in the construction of religious identity, particularly focusing on the position of East Syriac martyr acts as a form of early Christian history-writing within the Sasanian Persian context. Before coming to Brown, Patryk was based at the University of Oxford where he received both his BA and MPhil in Theology and Religious Studies.  

Chandler’s research explores some of the various ways that the categories of the religious and the secular shape political imagination in the United States. His work traverses cultural and political sites that aren’t fully legible with the logic of right/left and religious/secular binaries—sites such as critiques of public schooling or religiously-tinged conspiracy theories. As a researcher and teacher, he tries to combine an ethic of radical care, a deep commitment to justice, and a reflexive attention to his encounters with ideas he finds repugnant or abhorrent. Beyond his primary academic research, he also has a strong interest in board games that extends into his teaching, research, public-facing work, and, of course, free time. Chandler received a BA in English from Pomona College in 2014 and an MA in English from the University of Virginia in 2023.

Vivek’s work revolves around the world(s) of popular/'folk' belief systems and practices in southern India, situated at the intersections of religion, caste, gender and sexuality. His research explores forms of lived religious belief and expression amongst women, trans and queer folx from local Dalit and lower caste communities through a praxis of anti-caste, black feminist ethnography. With a MSc in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London, Vivek’s interests are shaped by his history of engagement with the social justice space.

Vivek is currently working on a project documenting and exploring jataras or pilgrimages in the state of Telangana, specifically looking at the phenomenon of benign spirit possession amongst Dalit and Shudra women and queer folx within these spaces. He is also archiving and theorizing the Tamil cults of the Virgin Mary and other Catholic saints through the lens of sacred materiality as well as experiences of queerness and caste within Indian Christianity.

Emily King’s work is rooted at the intersection of religion and literature, with a special attention towards Simone Weil and T.S. Eliot. She is interested in French philosophy, British modernism, and Catholic theology. She holds a BA in English literature from Stanford University and an MDiv from the University of Chicago. Her undergraduate thesis “Poetry as Decreation” won the Robert M. Golden Award, and research for her master’s thesis “A Saint’s Notebook” was funded by the International Ministry Student Grant. 

Changzhong Fashi 常鐘法師 (Shin Lee) is a scholar and practitioner of Chinese Buddhism. She is currently a Ph.D. student in Asian Religious Traditions in the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University and a member of the Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Sangha in Taiwan.  She holds an M.A. in East Asian Studies from the University of Arizona, where she specialized in premodern Chinese Buddhism, and a B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures from National Taiwan University.  Since her ordination as a Buddhist bhikkhuni in 2009, she has been leading Chan retreats and teaching Buddhist courses to the public.  Her research interests encompass Chan Buddhism, Buddhist education, monasticism, and Buddhist institutions, primarily through textual and historical analysis.  She is particularly intrigued by the recorded sayings of Chan masters and their significance for the training of Buddhist monastics. 

Zhujun is a PhD student in ART. She earned her BA in Chinese Languages & Literature from Zhengzhou University, a MA degree in Chinese Folk Literature from Shandong University, and her Dual MA in Religious Studies and Asian Languages & Civilizations from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research interests mainly focus on religions, gender, vernacular practices, and print culture in Late Imperial China. She is currently wrapping up her research on the pilgrimage to the Goddess of Mount Tai (Bixia yuanjun), and has recently started exploring the cheaply printed pilgrimage maps of Mount Jiuhua in the late Qing and early Republican era.

Patrick is a doctoral candidate in ART.  He earned his BA in History from George Mason University and MA in Chinese History from Xiamen University in Fujian, PRC.  Patrick's broader research interests are in Buddhist intellectual and social histories in medieval China.  His dissertation investigates and alleged Tiantai heresy in the Northern Song (960-1127), specifically examining how one Tinatai-affiliated group assimilated contested tathāgatagarbha doctrine into their own soteriological visions.  This project also explores questions about Buddhist sectarian identity within the context of this monastic textual community centered around exegesis, textual learning, and cultivation practices.

Michael A. Putnam is a doctoral student in Religion and Critical Thought.  His interests lie at the intersection of theory of religion, religious ethics, political theory, and the environmental humanities.  His primary research explores the religious dimensions of environmental politics in the United States.  Starting from the observation that American environmentalism has often been inflected with a certain religiosity, he examines how various paradigms for conceiving religion have accompanied environmental writing and activism.  His other areas of interest include the religious ethics of American Romanticism, the relationship between religion and science, and critical theories of secularism.  Before coming to Brown, Michael studied at Whitman College (BA) and Harvard Divinity School (MTS).  He has received a Mellon Graduate Fellowship in Collaborative Humanities from the Cogut Institute for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Donnell's research examines the dialogical relationship between faith and despair in relation to Protestantism's various, often disparate, ethical dispositions.  His scholarship focuses on modern religious thought, historical philosophy, and the Black literary tradition.  His primary research interests include philosophy of religion, religion and politics, religious ethics, and Black American religious traditions, emphasizing the intellectual histories of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Søren Kierkegaard.  Donnell holds a B.A. in Sociology from Morehouse College and an MDiv from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.  He enjoys reading, playing tennis, and listening to music in his spare time.

Shuangxia “Sunshine” Wu is a first-year PhD student in Islam, Society, and Culture. She studies the social and intellectual history of Muslims in early modern China. Her broader interests include lived religion, transnationalism, cultural translation, and minority studies. Sunshine received a BA in Religious Studies and Mathematics from Brown University and a MTS from Harvard Divinity School. She enjoys rock-climbing, making music, and watching the sunset. 

Chris studies early Chinese intellectual history, with a focus on practices of self-cultivation, esotericism, and the body.  His dissertation examines traditions of "biospiritual" practice (dietetic, gymnastic, sexual, and meditational regimens by which many sought to extend their lives and expand their powers) with particular attention to the concept of shen (often translated as "spirit").  He holds a BA and MA in Religious Studies from Stanford University and an MA from Harvard University's Committee on Regional Studies East Asia.