Philip started following the work of Silvia Mustață, Babes-Bolyai University, Ancient History and Archaeology.
Philip
The Bulletin for the Study of Religion has a new section called "Field Notes" (for announcements, call for papers, etc). See link: http://www.equinoxpub.com/blog
Philip started following the work of Michael Kaler, York University, Music, Faculty of Fine Arts.
Philip
Here is a three-part interview with Amir Hussain, the new editor of JAAR, which I posted on the Bulletin's blog page. Be sure to follow the links to parts two and three: http://www.equinoxpub.com/bl..
About
I'm an independent scholar living in Seattle, WA USA, though I'm originally from Toronto, ON Canada. (I'm a Canadian citizen and US permanent resident.) I hold a Ph.D. degree from McGill University in religious studies (2005), with a special focus in early Christian studies and a doctoral thesis on the social rhetoric of moral exhortation in Valentinian Christianity.
I was recently appointed in June 2011, working with Craig Martin, as co-editor of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion (http://www.equinoxpub.com/bulletin/).
I've worked in publishing (Elsevier Ltd. in Oxford), was a visiting assistant professor at Willamette University, and currently hold a courtesy appointment as a visiting scholar at the University of Washington.
My research interests center on New Testament and early Christian studies, with a particular focus on Nag Hammadi and Gnostic studies (in particular Valentinianism). My work on the New Testament has largely focused on epistolary and rhetorical studies (e.g., the Pauline prescripts and 1 Peter's letter structure).
An increasingly important development in my work has been Roman social history, including birthing beliefs and death rituals. This growing interest in social history has led me to engage early Christian martyr traditions (an area within which I plan to do further research). Beyond my specialization, I have strong interests in method and theory issues in the field as well as pedagogical challenges in the humanities.
As a teacher, I strongly believe in collaborative pedagogy, where I join my students as a co-learner and facilitator rather than as the all-knowing expert. In the classroom, I understand religious studies to be a study of cultural and social interactions of people through their symbol systems (i.e., as integral to the humanities). Like other disciplines in the humanities, the study of religious phenomena should foster critical thinking skills that have value beyond the specifics of a given course. Critical thinking is a vital component of life-long learning, knowledge mobilization, and engaged citizenship.
