IU Center for Religion and the Human names co-director

Susan BarretoSusan is an author with a long-time interest in religion and science. She currently edits Covalence, the Lutheran Alliance for Faith, Science and Technology’s online magazine. She has written articles in The Lutheran and the Zygon Center for Religion and Science newsletter. Susan is a board member for the Center for Advanced Study of Religion and Science, the supporting organization for the Zygon Center and the Zygon Journal. She also co-wrote Our Bodies Are Selves with Dr. Philip Hefner and Dr. Ann Pederson.

J. Kameron Carter, professor of religious studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, has been appointed as co-director of the Center for Religion and the Human.

He replaces Lisa Sideris, who recently accepted a position in the environment studies program at University of California, Santa Barbara. Carter leads the center with Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, provost professor of religions studies at the university. Carter is an expert in the intersections of Blackness with religion, theology, ecology and American culture and there are plans underway of expanding the center’s projects and events.

“Recently, the center has taken up challenges of earth, social and political justice by attending to race and anti-Black violence,” Sullivan said. “A focus on Black religion will enhance our capacity for rethinking the human, rethinking justice, and ultimately rethinking the world otherwise.”

The Center for Religion and the Human is supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and IU Bloomington’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research.