Whom to Contact

James Thrall
Knight Distinguished Assistant Professor for the Study of Religion and Culture
2 East South Street
Galesburg, IL 61401-4999
309-341-7912
E-mail: jthrall@knox.edu

Faculty

Meet the Religious Studies Faculty

The concentration in Religious Studies draws upon Knox faculty expertise in several areas related to religion and theology -- history, black studies, political science, sociology, anthropology, sociology and philosophy. Their academic fields are listed below, with additional information and e-mail contacts on each person's linked profile page.

Penny Gold, Co-Chair
Burkhardt Distinguished Chair in History
Ph.D., Stanford University, 1977
"One of the joys of teaching is to inspire students to ask their own questions, and to see them through the process of finding answers."

James Thrall, Co-Chair
Knight Distinguished Assistant Professor for the Study of Religion & Culture
Ph.D., Duke University, 2005
"My interest in world religions stems in large part from having grown up in Japan, Burma, Korea, and the Philippines as a member of a U.S. Foreign Service family."

Nancy Eberhardt
Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D., University of Illinois, 1984
"I have always been fascinated with the way culture and social organization affect our personal experience of the world."

Lance Factor
George Appleton Lawrence Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy
Ph.D., University of Georgia, 1970
"I take seriously the search for an environmental ethic that will treat animals and habitats as possessing significant worth."

Sue Hulett
Richard P. and Sophia D. Henke Distinguished Professor of Political Science
Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1979
"My research focuses on changing American roles in the new world order."

Natania Rosenfeld
Professor of English
Ph.D., Princeton University, 1992
"Some current projects of mine include: A collection of memoir essays in which a vision is formed through errancy and movement. The book is autobiographical in exploring the formation of my own mind through travel, books, art and, especially, the clash and combination of several languages."

Gina Franco
Associate Professor of English
Ph.D., Cornell University, 2004
"I'm also working on superstition in nineteenth-century British Romanticism, a project that has led me to look at the tragic dramas of William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley."

Duane Oldfield
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley, 1992
"The book analyzes the ways in which social movements of the Left and the Right make sense of, politicize, and form alliances to deal with the processes frequently labeled with the term 'globalization.'"