Four professors in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics have been promoted, demonstrating excellent performance in teaching, service and research.
Dr. Andrea McComb Sanchez is promoted from Assistant Professor to tenured Associate Professor; Dr. Sarah McCallum is promoted from Assistant Professor to tenured Associate Professor; Dr. Courtney Friesen is promoted from tenured Associate Professor to tenured Professor; and Dr. Alison Jameson is promoted from Assistant Professor of Practice to Associate Professor of Practice.
McComb Sanchez, who earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializes in Native American religious traditions, religion in the Southwest, religion and colonialism in the U.S. and religion and the environment. She is a member of the American Indian Studies Graduate Interdisciplinary Program and an affiliate of the Institute of the Environment. Dr. McComb Sanchez’s current book project, Of Corn and Catholicism: A History of Religion and Power in Pueblo Indian Patron Saint Feast Days, is under contract with the University of Nebraska Press. Dr. McComb Sanchez teaches courses on Native American religious traditions, religion and culture in the Southwest, religion and ecology, and theory and method in religious studies.
Jameson, who is jointly appointed in the Department of East Asian Studies, serves as faculty undergraduate advisor for Religious Studies. She is the Co-Director, along with Dr. Kristy Slominski, of the Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture. She received her M.A. in Philosophy from Ohio University and her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. She teaches courses including Love in World Religions, Worlds of Buddhism, Life After Death in World Religions and Philosophy, and Zen Buddhism.
McCallum’s research interests include: Latin language and literature, especially Republican and Augustan poetry; Greek language and literature, especially Archaic and Hellenistic poetry; the ancient literary tradition; and the concept of love in Roman poetry. Her latest publication is Elegiac Love and Death in Vergil’s Aeneid (Oxford University Press, 2023). McCallum teaches courses including The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Epic Tradition; Elementary Classical Greek; Prose of the Roman Republic; and Word Roots: Science and Medical Terminology. She received her Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Toronto.
Friesen is Director of Graduate Studies for Classics and holds a Ph.D. in Classical and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Minnesota. His research concerns intersections of Greek literature with the religious worlds of ancient Jews and Christians. His most recent monograph is Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era (Routledge, 2023). He teaches all levels of Classical Greek as well as courses on the New Testament, early Christianity, and Greek and Roman religion and culture.