GRADUATE STUDENTS IN RELIGION — THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

The graduate program has three tracks.   Short descriptions of the academic interests of graduate students in each area of emphasis are provided below:   

RELIGION IN THE AMERICAS

Mallory K. Bolduc.  Ph.D. Student (from 2007). Mallory graduated with honors from Texas Christian University with a B.A. in political science and religion. Her undergraduate thesis, which she presented at the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies, examined the Christian lobby for Israel in the United States and analyzed the effectiveness of this lobby under the George W. Bush administration. She has also spent several months in Seville, Spain, where she studied interreligious dialogue and conflict under Muslim and Catholic rule. Her research interests relate primarily to the religious facet of state-sponsored terrorism, with a focus on military regimes in South America..mkbolduc@ufl.edu

Seth Bryant.  M.A. student (from 2007). Mr. Bryant earned a bachelor’s degree in English, with a minor in religion, from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, graduating summa cum laude. His thesis investigated religion and (dys)function within the medieval Corpus Christi plays. Previous to Westminster and while a soldier in the US Army, he also attended and graduated from Weber State University (AS, High Honors) and LDS Business College (Accounting). His current research interests involve the Latter Day Saint Movement, and specifically the cultural response of Mormonism to homosexuality. bryant@ufl.edu

Rose Caraway.  Ph.D. student (from 2006). Ms.Caraway received a BA in Latin American Studies in 2003 from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2006, she received her MA in Latin American Studies from Tulane University in New Orleans. Her research interests include religion in Latin America, social movements, Christianity and globalization, and religious ethics. She is currently working with Dr. Virginia Garrard-Burnett at the University of Texas at Austin on a Templeton Foundation project entitled "Faces of God in Latin America," in which she focuses on contemporary Protestant movements in Cuba. rcaraway@ufl.edu

Shreena N. Gandhi.  Ph.D. candidate (from 2003). Miss Gandhi received her BA in Religion from Swarthmore College, where her major was religion and her thesis research centered on Buddhist religious narratives in Sri Lanka. In 2003 she received her Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. While at Harvard Divinity, she worked as a research assistant at the Center for Studies of World Religions, where her research focused on the religions of Iran. Miss Gandhi has started work on her disseration, "Translating and Commodifying Yoga: From Transcendentalist Musings to Religious Market Staple". This dissertation combines Miss Gandhi's research interests which include religions of the Americas, Hinduism in the Diaspora, the study of material religion, and the relationship between capitalism and religion. In the Fall of 2007, Miss Gandhi will join the faculty of the Religion Department at Kalamazoo College. sgandhi@religion.ufl.edu

Janna Lafferty. Ph.D student (from 2008). Janna received her B.A. in 2004 from the University of California, San Diego with dual majors in Cultural Anthropology and the Study of Religion, graduating cum laude, with honors and high distinction in the Anthropology department. There, she was awarded with the A. Irving Hallowell award for excellence in socio-cultural anthropology. In 2007, Janna completed her M.A. in the Religion Department at Duke University with a concentration in American Religious History. She is broadly concerned with issues of theory and method in the study of religion and places her primary inquiries within the historical context of North America since the 19th century. Her research interests include religion and politics, especially imaginations of religion within secular/liberal states, with regards to which she is interested in religiously motivated/identified political activism and disobedience, socially marginalized religious communities and new religious movements. She is particularly concerned with social issues surrounding LDS and FLDS communities since the 19th century and the role of religion in socio-political relations/contests between Native and Euro-Americans.jannalauren@ufl.edu

Gayle Ann Spiers Lasater. Ph.D. candidate (from 2003). Ms. Lasater received a BA in Anthropology with a minor in International Relations at the University of West Florida, following this with an MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and an emphasis in Sociology from Florida International University. Her academic interests include religion and politics in the Americas, western monotheism in the Atlantic New World, the interaction of Christian missions in the Americas, and religion and the environment. Ms. Lasater was a researcher with Ford Foundation's immigrant religion project, "Latino Immigrants in Florida: Lived Religion, Space, and Power,"working with principle investigator and religion department professor Manuel Vasquez. Ms. Lasater is writing her dissertation entitled Building the Kingdom: Mormon Missionaries and the Americas. glasater@ufl.edu

Ann Marie Palmer. M.A. student (from 2007). Ms. Palmer received her undergraduate degree with honors in Religious Studies and Psychology from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. Her main interests were based in Catholicism and Islam within North America. Her senior thesis focused on anointing of the sick within Catholic churches in the central Florida community. Ms. Palmer is currently working on her M.A. within the Religion in North America track. Her academic interests include Islam in North America, gender studies, and health and spirituality. aboles@ufl.edu

Sean O’Neil.   Ph.D. student (from 2005). Mr. O'Neil received a BA in English and History from the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and holds a Masters in International Affairs--Latin American Studies from Ohio University. He taught high school levels of World and American history in Bogota, Colombia and from 2003 to 2005 Mr. O'Neil was an instructor of Spanish language and Latin American history at North Greenville College in Tigerville, South Carolina. His academic interests include religious ethics; religion, transnationalism, and globalization; religion and race in the Southern United States; the history of Christianity; religion and politics in the Americas; theologies of social concern; Christian ecumenism in the Americas; pneumacentric religions in the Americas; sociolinguistics and religion in Latin America; and religion, film, and popular culture.soneil@religion.ufl.edu

Leah Sarat.  Ph.D. student (from 2006).  Ms. Sarat received a BA in Comparative Cultures and Fine Art from Alfred University, and an MA in Religion and Culture from Wilfrid Laurier University. During an undergraduate semester in Nepal, she researched community formation among migrants to the KathmanduValley. After graduation, Ms. Sarat worked for two years as a resident volunteer at a women’s shelter in Ciudad Júarez, Mexico. During this time she assisted with the Border Awareness Program, introducing U.S. college students to the political and social realities of the border area. Her research interests include ritual, indigenous religions of the Americas, and the religious dimensions of U.S.-Mexico border crossing. Ms. Sarat has presented her work at the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion and is a contributor to The U.S.-Mexico Border: A Cultural and Political Encyclopedia.lsarat@ufl.edu

Hilit Surowitz.   Ph.D. student (from 2004). Ms. Surowitz received an undergraduate degree from the University of Florida with a dual major in Religion and Political Science, and afterward, a Fulbright Fellowship to study the religious and social integration of Israel's Ethiopian Jewish community. She subsequently earned a master's degree from the department of religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and taught primary and secondary school in both Israel and South Florida. Her research interests include Caribbean religion, the Jewish communities of the Caribbean, and diaspora studies. She is particularly interested in the trans-Atlantic social and religious networks established and maintained by European, North African, and Caribbean Jewish communities and their role in defining community identity. hilits@religion.ufl.edu

These Religion and Nature students have declared Religions of the Americas their secondary area: Gavin Van Horn, Samuel Snyder, Eleanor Finnegan, Bridgette O'Brien.

RELIGIONS OF ASIA

Carly Dwyer.   M.A. student (from 2007).Mrs. Dwyer graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Anthropology and Religion from Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. Her undergraduate anthropology thesis explored the rituals for death performed by Hindus in Varanasi, India and the history of cremation in the United States. Her undergraduate religion thesis focused on death and dying rituals among immigrant and second generation Indian Hindus in America. In January 2006 she spent a month studying performing arts and pilgrimage in Varanasi, India. Her current academic interests include Hinduism around the world, Jainism and the sacred geography of pilgrimage.

Phillip Green.   Ph.D. student (from 2007).Mr. Green received an undergraduate degree in comparative religion from the University of Washington, and after living abroad in Japan for three years returned to earn a master's degree from the University of Florida in religion with an emphasis in early Indian Buddhism. His current academic research focuses on avadana literature, especially how images of women are portrayed and understood in a Buddhist collection of avadanas known as the Avadanasataka. He is also particularly interested in patterns of early Buddhist transmission and its connections with popular Buddhist narratives such as avadana and jataka tales. Phillip has also organized UF's first Sanskrit club in order to provide students of Sanskrit additional resources and peer support.psgreen@religion.ufl.edu

Michael J. Gressett.   Ph.D. student (from 2003). Mr. Gressett graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in Religious Studies and took his master's degree from the University of Florida in South Asian religious traditions with an emphasis in Hinduism. His research interests are Hindu traditions in America and new religious movements in America. He has taught Sanskrit, Religions of India, and Religion in Asia for the department. Mr. Gressett has reviewed for the Journal of Asian Studies and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and serves as a consultant for religionlink.org. saumya@ufl.edu

Kendall Marchman. Ph.D student (from 2008). Mr. Marchman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Mercer University and a Master of Theological Studies from Vanderbilt University. His main focus is Asian Buddhism, specifically its transmission and early development in China. His secondary interests include Hinduism, Vajrayana, Popular Religion, and Comic Books.krmarchman@ufl.edu

Caleb Simmons. Ph.D student (from 2008). Caleb Simmons graduated from the Missouri State University (formerly Southwest Missouri State University) with a B.A. in Religious Studies. He received his master's degree from the Florida State University in Asian religious traditions with an emphasis in Hinduism (Thesis: She Who Slays the Buffalo Demon: Divinity, Identity, and Authority in Iconography of Mahishasuramardini). He has taught Religions of South Asia, Introduction to World Religions, and Asian Humanities at various institutions. Mr. Simmons has authored several encyclopedia articles covering a wide range of topics in South Asian History.simmons@ufl.edu

Jimi Wilson. M.A. student (from 2006). Mr. Wilson earned a BA in Philosophy and Religion and a BS in Mass Communications (with a concentration in journalism) at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke. His emphasis is in Hindu religious ethnography. As an undergraduate his research focused on practices among diasporic Hindus from the Sindh region (modern Pakistan). In addition to his ongoing interest in Sindhi Hinduism, he has recently been researching ways in which alternative music forms in the west—particularly punk rock—have incorporated Hindu religious concepts and have sometimes been used to promote various forms of Hinduism. jimi45@ufl.edu

RELIGION AND NATURE

Clint Bland. Ph.D. student (from 2008). Mr. Bland received a B.A. from Texas A&M University in 2006 where he majored in English literature and minored in history and film studies. In 2008, he completed an M.A. in religious studies at the University of Kansas where his thesis focused on critiquing the rehabilitation of theories of totemism and their application to the contemporary anti-whaling movement by scholars outside the field of religious studies. His current interests (which have yet to be whittled down) include studying the impact of environmental policies on marginalized religious communities, surveying creation care curriculum in seminary settings, the process of formulating or constructing theories of religion relative to radical environmentalism, the legal and cultural implications of increasing religious literacy in secondary public education, and narratives of isolation and spiritual awakening in the popularized stories of failed survivalists such as Timothy Treadwell and Christopher McCandless.ctbland@ufl.edu

Amy Brown. Ph.D. candidate (2008). Amy graduated from the University of Arkansas with a B.S. in Microbiology and a minor in Religious Studies. She received an M.S. in Natural Resources with a focus on environmental thought and culture from the University of Vermont. Her research interests include green or natural burial (environmentally-friendly funerals), evangelical conflict over climate change, ecofeminism and the role of eschatological thinking in Christian response to environmental devastation.amylbrown@ufl.edu

Eleanor Finnegan.   Ph.D. student (from 2005).Ms. Finnegan received an undergraduate degree in religious studies with minors in economics and environmental studies from Colgate University and a Master of Theological Studies from Vanderbilt University with a focus on Islamic studies. Her scholarly interests include American Islam and Muslims, the impact of the Islamic tradition on environmental ethics and practices, and Muslim hip-hop music. The recipient of several Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships, Ms. Finnegan has an advanced knowledge of Modern Standard Arabic. Her dissertation will be focused on farming among American Muslim communities. Ms. Finnegan is a contributor to Environmental Ethics and the Encyclopedia of Environment and Society. finneged@ufl.edu

Robin F. Globus.   M.A. candidate (from 2006). Ms. Globus received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College. Her scholarly interests include understanding impediments to proenvironmental behavior and the role of values across disciplines in university education. rglobus@ufl.edu

Jacob L. Jones. Ph.D. candidate (2008). J Jacob received his B.A. in Philosophy with a Religious Studies option from Montana State University in 2005. Then in 2008 he received his M.A. from University of Missouri. Throughout his M.A. studies Jacob focused on issues of power and new religious movements in America. His scholarly interests are in the role of nature in dialogues between various religious communities and nature and religion in everyday life in America.jljgv9@ufl.edu

Greg McElwain.   Ph.D. Student (from 2007). Mr. McElwain received a BA in Biblical Text from Abilene Christian University and an MTS in Ethics from Vanderbilt University. His primary interest is in environmental ethics and philosophy, and he is pursuing a minor in the Philosophy Department. His research interests include philosophy of religion, religion/philosophy and animals, agriculture, and practice theory.gmcelwain@ufl.edu

Bridgette O'Brien.   Ph.D. student (from 2005). Ms. O'Brien earned an undergraduate degree in comparative world religions at the University of Puget Sound and a master's degree from the religion department at Columbia University where her studies focused on the religious traditions of Asia. Ms. O'Brien has taught high school for the past eight years. She worked with Harvard's Pluralism Project to educate students about the religious diversity in the Northwest and explored with her students how different religions addressed local environmental concerns in the Puget Sound area. Her professional interests include continued involvement with secondary school education where she aims to incorporate ideas about ecological literacy and outdoor/environmental education with people's religious understanding of the world through innovative curriculum units that contribute to broader education reforms. bridge72@ufl.edu

Samuel Snyder.   Ph.D. Mr. Snyder received an undergraduate degree in philosophy and religious studies from Bucknell University, and a master's degree from Syracuse University with a dual focus on philosophy of religion and religion and nature. He is the current Graduate Student Representative, and acting American Academy of Religion Student Liaison for University of Florida Religion Program. His scholarly interests include the study of nature recreation as “lived religious practice” focusing on the role these activities play in environmental conservation. He is also interested in grassroots environmental action, food and sustainability, and understanding the relationships between environmental values and practice. Mr. Snyder is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature and is currently teaching and writing his dissertation, tentatively titled “Casting for Conservation: An Investigation of Beliefs, Attitudes, and Actions toward Nature in Fly Fishing Culture.” udes, and Actions toward Nature in Fly Fishing Culture.” ssnyder@religion.ufl.edu

David Wiles.   M.A. student (from 2003). Mr. Wiles received an M.A. in philosophy, focusing on environmental ethics, from Colorado State University. His main academic interests are bioregionalism, permaculture, and the idea that it is possible, productive, and personally rewarding for environmentalists to continue to "strive" despite the despair they might feel in their struggles to protect the environment. He is currently teaching at Alachua county community colleges, when not playing underwater hockey. dwiles@religion.ufl.edu

Joseph Witt.   Ph.D. student (from 2004). Mr. Witt received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and religion from Hendrix College in 2003. In 2006, he received his Master of Arts degree in religious studies from the University of Florida. His research considered the involvement of Celtic Christian and neo-pagan groups in environmental activism in the United Kingdom and Ireland, particularly surrounding the 2005 G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. Mr. Witt’s current research involves the study of religion and nature in the southern United States, primarily focusing on the influence of religions in environmental activism, including issues of mountaintop removal, deforestation and chip-mills, National Forest and parkland uses, and environmental justice. He is a contributor to the journal Worldviews and, with Bron Taylor, Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America. Mr. Witt is also the managing editor for the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. jwitt@religion.ufl.edu