By Dimitri Bawole (’26)
The 2025 annual meetings of American Academy of Religion (AAR) and Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) were held in Boston from November 22–25, bringing together thousands of professors, students, authors, publishers, scholars and religious leaders from around the world. The conference featured a diverse array of panels, workshops, and presentations that highlighted the latest research and developments in theology, religious studies, and biblical scholarship.
Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) was prominently represented, with fifteen students presenting their research and thirteen faculty members serving as panelists and showcasing their work across a wide range of topics.
BUSTH also hosted a reception at Fuller’s BU Pub on Sunday, November 23, bringing together faculty, students, alumni, and members of the broader BUSTH community during the conference.
Below is a list of BUSTH-affiliated faculty, alumni, and students who presented at the 2025 AAR & SBL annual meeting.
Faculty
- Panelist, Practical Theology Unit and Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit
- Presenter, “‘Making Over Their Inheritances…While Still Alive’: Greco-Roman Philosophies of Land Management and the Parable of the Absentee Vineyard Owner” | Synoptic Gospels Section
- Presenter, “Interfaith Women Leaders’ Wellbeing and Leadership” | Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Unit
- Panelist, Korean North American Theology
- Panelist, Religion and Human Rights Unit and Religion and Politics Unit
- Presenter, “Preaching Mark and Point of View” | Homiletics and Biblical Studies Section
- Panelist, Liberation Theologies Unit
- Presenter, “What (Who) Are These Believers Selling? Property, Enslavement, and Belonging (Acts 2:43–47)” | Book of Acts Section
- Panelist, Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism Section
- Panelist, SBL’s Biblical Studies and Spiritual Care: Intersections of Pastoral Praxis and Biblical Hermeneutics and AAR’s Innovations in Chaplaincy
- Panelist, Theology and Religious Reflection Unit
- Presenter, “A Vocabulary of Liberation: Personal Names as Religious Discourse in the Southern Levant” | Israelite Religion in Its Ancient Context Section
- Presenter, “Beyond Tribes of YHWH: Hebrew Bible, Practical Theology, and the Legacy of Norman Gottwald” | Bible and Practical Theology Section
- Panelist, National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion
- Panelist, Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Unit
- Panelist, Arts of Interpretation
- Panelist, American Lectures in the History of Religion Lecture
- Panelist, Comparative Religious Ethics Unit
- Panelist, Religion and the Social Sciences Unit
Students
Aulia Simon Partogi Situmeang
- Presenter, “Reinterpreting Freedom and Liberation Theology from Indonesia: Insights from Amir Sjarifoeddin’s Life” | World Christianity Unit
Dimitri Januar Bawole
- Presenter, “Gay World on the Space: Unveiling Lived Experiences of Indonesian Gay Individuals on X” | Gay Men and Religion Unit
Dohyung (Jacob) Cha
- Presenter, “Taking Covenants Seriously: Inaugural Eschatology through the Lens of Symbolic Self-Completion” | Psychology and Biblical Studies Seminar
Elsawinda Pulamau
- Presenter, “The Forbidden Memory: Revisiting the Silencing of Oppressed Voices in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the 1965 Indonesian Massacre” | Contextual Biblical Interpretation Section
- Presenter, “Let Them Speak: Centering Animal Agency in the Famine Narrative of Genesis 41” | Ecological Hermeneutics Section
Eun Young Choi
- Presenter, “Human Detachment from the Land: Understanding the appropriation, expropriation and exploitation of land in the context of an extension of Marxian concepts of primitive accumulation and alienation from an animist/ecological perspective” | Religion and Ecology Unit
Jennifer Lewis
- Presenter, “Rest, Racial, Justice, and Spiritualities of Repair: The Role of Rest in Ecclesial Vocations to Racial Justice” | Christian Spirituality Unit
Joshua Lazard
- Presenter, “A Sound from ‘Something Within’: The Sonic Properties of Fugitivity in the Black Preaching Tradition” | Philosophy of Religion Unit and Political Theology Unit
Kayla Nathania Thayeb
- Presenter, “Fullness of Emptiness: Reading Philippians 2:7 through Zen” | Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Unit
Linda (Yun Ja) Kwak
- Presenter, “The Theopolitical Impact of Korean American Women Pastors: An Investigation into Interdependent Leadership” | Practical Theology Unit
Lucy Pulamau
- Presenter, “The Future with(out) Animals” | The Bible and Animal Studies Section
Mookie Manalili
- Presenter, “Suffering Speaks: Embodies Articulation (in Spiritual Autobiographies)” | Liberation Theologies Unit
- Presenter, “On Mystical Darkness: Prophets & Mystics for Liberatory Transformation – San Juan de La Cruz, Howard Thurman, and Raimon Panikkar” | Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit
Nataly Romero Maita
- Presenter, “Some Elements of the Apocalyptic Literature in the Peruvian Dance La Diablada Puneña” | Apocalypse Now: Apocalyptic Reception and Impact throughout History Seminar
Nathan Davis Hunt
- Presenter, “”The Land is Mine”: A Congregational Case Study of Affordable Housing Action as a Praxis of Political Revelation — Relations & Contradictions” | Religion and Cities Unit
Sam Cole-Osborn
- Presenter, “An Ecosystem of Agential Signs: Occult Metaphysics, Actor-Networks, and Semiotics” | Esotericism Unit and Religion and Ecology Unit
Samantha Reily
- Presenter, “Fetish Parts in the Red Heifer of Numbers 19” | Reading, Theory, and the Bible Section
- Presenter, “Yashen and Pentateuchal Regression” | Psychology and Biblical Studies Seminar
Alumni
Claudia Alvarez
- Presenter, “The Queer People of the Pentecost: Voices from Latin America” | Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements Unit
Xochitl Alvizo
- Panelist, Status of Women and Gender Minoritized Persons in the Professions Committee
Carolynn Hitter Brown
- Panelist, Music and Religion Unit
Stephanie Budwey
- Panelist, Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Unit and Queer Studies in Religion Unit
Emily Nelms Chastain
- Presenter, “Institutional Gatekeeping and Gendered Agency: How American Methodist Women Navigated Ecclesial Patriarchy, 1880-1980” | Manchester Wesley Research Center
Benjamin Chicka
- Presenter, “Religious Playgrounds: Playing with Ethics and Religious Identity in Video Games” | Teaching Religion Unit
Madison Chau
- Presenter, “Vietnamese Americans, Donald Trump, and Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding the Generational Divide Through Volkan’s Group Psychology” | Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Unit
Laura Montoya Cifuentes
- Presenter, “Indecent Pentecostalism: A Twenty-first-century Re-reading of Elisabeth Brusco’s Work in Colombia” | Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements Unit
Stephanie Edwards
- Presenter, “Buying Amnesia: Boston College’s Bailout of Clergy-Perpetuated Sexual Abuse” | Religion and Memory Unit
Danielle Tumminio Hansen
- Respondent, Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit
Antipas Harris
- Panelist, Music and Religion Unit
Soren Hessler
- Presenter, “Intergenerational Interreligious Friendships: Leadership Legacies of Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Howard Thurman” | Religious Reflections on Friendship Seminar
Greylyn Hydinger
- Panelist, North American Paul Tillich Society
Shinmyung Kim
- Presenter, Reconceptualizing Freedom and Liberation: Analyzing Korean Women’s Experiences through Gunho Kim’s Poem “어머님 말씀 (Ǒmǒnim Malssǔm)” | Women and Religion Unit
Matthew Lai
- Presenter, “Political Mourning as Ritual Protest: The Chinese Religious Elements of the June 4 Candlelight Vigils in Hong Kong” | Chinese Religions Unit
Herman Manoe
- Panelist, Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics Seminar and Historical Jesus Section
Chad Moore
- Presenter, “The Aesthetics of Enterprise Evangelical ‘Edutainment’: How Corporate Artists Helped Proselytize Capitalism Across the American Heartland” | Evangelical Studies Unit
Ludwig Noya
- Panelist, Minoritized Criticism and Biblical Interpretation Section and Racism, Pedagogy, and Biblical Studies Section
Kori Pacyniak
- Presenter, “Take Me to Church [in Space]: The Priest in Speculative Fiction” | Religion and Science Fiction Unit
- Presenter, “The Catholic Imperative for Trans Affirming Healthcare” | North American Religions Unit
Cynthia Perry
- Presenter, “Running Toward Freedom: Womanist Athletes as Theologians of Liberation” | Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Unit
Monica Rey
- Presenter, “Edward Said’s Victim of the Victims and the Canaanite Genocide” | Deuteronomistic History Section, Joshua-Judges Section, and Postcolonial Studies and Biblical Studies Section
- Panelist, Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible Section, Islands, Islanders, and Scriptures Seminar, Minoritized Criticism and Biblical Interpretation Section, and Postcolonial Studies and Biblical Studies
- Panelist, Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Unit
Patrick Reyes
- Panelist, Ecclesial Practices Unit and Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society Unit
Sakena Young-Scaggs
- Panelist, Theology of Martin Luther King Jr. Unit
Patrick Tugwell
- Presenter, “The American Theology of Winning: Trump, Peale, and the Metaphysical Tradition” | Religion and Politics Unit
- Panelist, SBL’s Biblical Studies and Spiritual Care: Intersections of Pastoral Praxis and Biblical Hermeneutics and AAR’s Innovations in Chaplaincy
Zachary Taylor
- Presenter, “Between Icon and Idol: Augustine in Film and the Problem of the Christian Hero” | Ethics Unit
J.J. Warren
- Presenter, “Postmodern Personalism? The Queer Condition of Ontological Instability” | Nineteenth Century Theology Unit, Pragmatism and Empiricism in American Religious Thought Unit and Wesleyan and Methodist Studies Unit
Montague Williams
- Panelist, Theology of Martin Luther King Jr. Unit
Gina Zurlo
- Respondent, Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements Unit