The Center
PeopleCSRC Steering Committee
Volney P. Gay, Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, Professor of Psychiatry, Professor of Anthropology
Volney Gay is on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Ritual Studies, Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, and Journal of the American Academy of Religion. He is a faculty member of the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute, from which he graduated in 1990. He was certified in Adult Psychoanalysis in 1990 by the American Psychoanalytic Association and was made a Training and Supervising Analyst in December, 1994. His book, Freud on Sublimation: Reconsiderations, published in 1992, won the Heinz Hartmann Award from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. His most recent book, Joy and the Objects of Psychoanalysis, was published in 2001. Professor Gay's research interests include psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, the psychodynamic study of culture, the comparative history of religions, and the psychology of religion.James Hudnut-Beumler, Dean of the Divinity School
James Hudnut-Beumler studied at Princeton University from 1984 to 1989, receiving both his master of arts and Ph.D. from the institution. From 1988 to 1991, he served as administrative director of the undergraduate program and lecturer in Public and International Affairs at The Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton. Earlier he spent a year as a lecturer in Princeton's Department of Religion. From 1983 to 1985 he was a consultant on church history and social ethics policy for the Advisory Council on Church and Society of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Hudnut-Beumler has published and presented widely in the areas of church history, ethics, and philanthropy. Among his publications are the 1994 book Looking for God in the Suburbs: The Religion of the American Dream and its Critics, published by Rutgers University Press and the 1999 book Generous Saints, published by the Alban Institute. Currently, Hudnut-Beumler directs the Material History of American Religion Project.Doug A. Knight, Professor of Hebrew Bible
Douglas A. Knight earned the Dr.theol. at Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany. Drawing especially on sociohistorical approaches and ideological criticism, he focuses his interests within Hebrew Bible studies on the social and political world of the first millennium BCE, the legal traditions, the historical and prophetic literature, ethics, and the history of biblical interpretation. He has been active in the Society of Biblical Literature and is co-founder and steering committee member of the Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives (ETANA). Major awards have come from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Program, the National Science Foundation, and the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. His lecturing has taken him across the United States and to Germany, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, Israel, Japan, and China. The author and editor of numerous books and articles, he currently serves as general editor of the series Library of Ancient Israel. At present he is completing a book entitled Law, Power, and Justice in Ancient Israel (Westminster John Knox Press) and is working on a commentary on the book of Joshua for the New Cambridge Bible Commentary series (Cambridge University Press).Richard McCarty, Dean of the College of Arts & Science
Richard McCarty earned both his B.S. and his M.S. degrees from Old Dominion University and received his Ph.D. in pathobiology from The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. He began his career in 1976 at the National Institute of Mental Health as a research associate in pharmacology and a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service. From 1978 to 1984 he was assistant professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, where he rose through the academic ranks. He became associate professor of psychology, professor of psychology, and he served as chair of the department from 1990 to 1998. In addition to his positions at the University of Virginia, he was Senior Fellow in the Section on Biochemical Pharmacology at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute from 1984-1985 and was a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke from 1994-1995. From 1998-2001, he was Executive Director for Science at the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C. He came to Vanderbilt University in July 2001 as Professor of Psychology and Dean of the College of Arts and Science. He also has a secondary appointment as Professor of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine.Susan Ford Wiltshire, Professor of Classics and Chair of the Department of Classical Studies
Susan Ford Wiltshire is (emerita) Professor of Classics at Vanderbilt University. Her books include Public and Private in Vergil's Aeneid; Greece, Rome, and the Bill of Rights; Seasons of Grief and Grace: A Sister's Story of Aids; and Athena's Disguises: Mentors in Everyday Life. A long-time member of the International Bonhoeffer Society, she also served as a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Humanities, 1997-2002.Mark J. Justad (ex officio)
Mark Justad, former Executive Director of the CSRC, is now Director of the Center for Principled Problem Solving at Guilford College. He teaches in the area of theology and culture with particular interests in gender, religion and society, and issues of globalization. Dr. Justad received his M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School and his Ph.D. in Theology from Vanderbilt University. Professor Justad is active in the American Academy of Religion and serves as President of the American Men's Studies Association. He was previously Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Vanderbilt Divinity School and served three years as Assistant to the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University.
