For the fourth consecutive year, BCSR faculty will mentor an intellectually diverse set of New Directions in Theology grant winners throughout the academic year. Representing eight disciplines, with interests ranging from antiquity to the present, the incoming New Directions students will regularly meet with BCSR faculty to discuss contemporary religious research and to refine their academic projects. The New Directions in Theology grants, part of the Berkeley Public Theology Program, support such work with $5000 in supplemental funding for these promising first- and second-year Ph.D. students.
With this most recent cohort, BCSR, with the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation, will have cumulatively invested $160,000 and significant faculty mentorship in 32 young scholars of religion since the start of the New Directions initiative in 2016.
The incoming New Directions students and their respective fields are listed below. BCSR welcomes them and looks forward to working with them in 2019-2020 and beyond.
Joshua Benjamins, Classics
Simon Brown, History
Aaron Eldridge, Anthropology
Nesma Gewily, Near Eastern Studies
Ashwak Hauter, Medical Anthropology
Maddie Lesser, English
Allyson Tang, Chinese Language
Alexander Ullman, English