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| Mary-Jane
Rubenstein, assistant professor of religion, will teach Modern Christian
Thought and the Problem of Evil during the fall semester. |
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| Posted 08.24.06 |
Department of Religion Welcomes New Assistant Professor
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Mary-Jane Rubenstein
has joined the Department of Religion as an assistant professor.
Her primary research interests are continental philosophy and Christian
theology. She also focuses on post-colonial Christianities; literary and
critical theory; and race, gender and sexuality studies.
Rubenstein comes to Wesleyan from the Department of Religion at Columbia
University in New York. There, she taught Contemporary Civilization and
co-taught the courses, “Religions in the Modern World” and “Religion and Its
Critics.” She was awarded the Core Curriculum Teaching Award in 2006.
Rubenstein received a bachelor of arts in religion and English from Williams
College; a master’s degree in philosophical theology from Emmanuel College,
Cambridge University; a master’s degree in philosophy of religion and certificate in comparative literature and society from
Columbia University; and a Ph.D in philosophy of religion from Columbia. Her
dissertation was titled “Wondrous Strange: The Closure of Metaphysics and
the Opening of Awe.”
Having studied at a liberal arts college, Rubenstein says she is deeply
committed to the kind of learning that takes place at an institution where
teaching and scholarship are equally valued.
“At Wesleyan in particular, one gets the feeling that students and faculty
consistently encourage one another to maintain a certain intellectual
openness, to be ready to be surprised, even amazed, by new possibilities for
thought and collaboration,” she says. “I am delighted to be coming to
Wesleyan; honestly, I couldn't have dreamed up a better job.”
Rubenstein is the author of a dozen articles and book reviews, some on the
topic of philosophers Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Derrida and negative theology
and global Anglicanism. In recent years, her article “The Unbearable
Withness of Being: On the Essentialist Blind-Spot of Anti-Ontotheology,”
appeared in Theology and the Political, published by Duke University
Press, and “An Anglican Crisis of Comparison: Intersections of Race, Gender,
and Religious Authority with Particular Reference to the Church of Nigeria,”
was published in the Journal of American Academy of Religion.
In the fall, Rubenstein will be teaching two courses, Modern Christian
Thought and the Problem of Evil. In the spring, she will teach Introduction
to Philosophy of Religion and a course on the death of God. Meanwhile, she
is busy settling into her new office in the Department of Religion.
When Rubenstein isn’t teaching, she practices yoga, and enjoys running,
singing and exploring second-hand bookshops. She resides in Middletown.
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| By
Olivia Bartlett, The Wesleyan Connection
editor |
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