Donovan Schaefer joins the Department of Religious Studies as an Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2017, after spending three years as a lecturer at the University of Oxford.
Professor Schaefer earned his B.A. in the Interdisciplinary Religion, Literature, and the Arts program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His Master’s and Doctoral degrees are from the Religion program at Syracuse University. After completing his PhD, he held a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Haverford College. His research focuses on the role of embodiment and emotion in religion and secularisms. His first book, Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power (Duke 2015) challenges the notion that religion is inextricably linked to language and belief, proposing instead that it is primarily driven by affects. His current project explores the intersection between New Materialisms, science, and secularisms.
