Hello, and welcome to my personal webpage. I am an associate professor in Miami University's Department of Comparative Religion, having received tenure from the university in the spring of 2005. As my curriculum vitae shows, I am an alumnus of Miami University, with both my BA (Classical Greek) and MA (Religion) degrees from this institution. So, my appreciation for and commitment to Miami University stem from more than the fact that I am employed here. I truly enjoy teaching here and my hope is that you will enjoy the classes you decide to take with me as much as I enjoy teaching them. I hope that you will take the time to work your way through the various sections of the webpage.
Comparing Religions: Possibilities and Perils?
(Leiden Netherlands, Brill Academic Publishers, 2006)
ISBN-10: 90-04-15267-0
Given the fact that today's university students are far more culturally sophisticated than ever before, Comparing Religions: Possibilities and Perils brings together a distinguished group of professors of religion whit years of teaching experience to address the central question of how comparison of religions should be pursued in today's classroom. Covering topics such as recent theoretical approaches to comparison, caste studies of comparing religions in the classroom, and the impact of postcolonialism and postmodernism on the modernist assumptions of comparativism, the volume seeks to problematize and interrogate the field, especially as it relates to emerging models of pedagogy at the university level. Comparing Religions will be of especial interest to those who teach in religious studies departments, or who teach courses on religion in departments of anthropology, sociology, and history.
To purchase Comparing Religions, click here.
Christ, the Image of the Church: The Construction of a New Cosmology and the Rise of Christianity
(Aurora Colorado, The Davies Group Publishers, 2006)
ISBN-10: 1-888570-95-4
Initial Reviews by Leading Scholars in the Field
“Christ, the Image of the Church is a fresh, original study that is sure to make a significant impact on the field of New Testament studies, as well as on religious studies in general. One of its major theses, that religious experience, socially construed, is crucial to the understanding and interpretation of the emergence of new religions, is well argued and persuasively demonstrated. It rightly challenges and corrects interpretations of these phenomena that attempt to explain it solely in terms of the history of ideas and theological propositions. It is a mature work of scholarship and will surely make its mark on the field.”
Adela Yarbro Collins, Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Yale Divinity School .
“Hanges is not the first to look to Pauline circles for the earliest instances of something different enough from Judaism that it could be called ‘Christianity’…but what Hanges brings to the table is a fresh theoretical argument for this assertion. Moreover, he mounts this argument within a larger context of contemporary Pauline scholarship that over the last several decades has seemed to be swinging in the opposite direction. I find Hanges’ contribution attractive and most helpful. He has offered as succinct a solution as I have seen to handling some important issues that have preoccupied Pauline studies for a long while, and I would anticipate that his book is going to be very well-received…I wish I had had Hanges’ book as one of the studies for analysis by my students.
Michael A. Williams, Professor and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilization, University of Washington .
“Christ, the Image of the Church…is creative, closely argued, thoroughly researched, and often fascinating. [Hanges] establishes his reading of Paul and Gentiles by sensitive interpretations of well-known texts and by demolishing the arguments of some of the most prominent contemporary Pauline interpreters. This argument, especially concerning Galatians…is a welcome corrective to much nonsense about Paul in contemporary scholarship.”
Dennis R. MacDonald, Professor of Religion and Director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at Claremont Graduate University .
To purchase Christ, The Image of the Church, click here.