Phillip completed his PhD in 2017 at the University of Pennsylvania in Religious Studies with a focus on Religion in the Roman Empire, especially the construction of Christianity and Christian identity. His research looks at the ways in which pseudepigraphic writings shape the reception of earlier textual traditions and how popular pseudepigraphy reflect the reading practices and concerns of both their anonymous creators and the culture in which they were situated. Since graduating, Phillip has taught religion courses at St. Augustine's University in Raleigh, NC, where he also served as director of the writing center, and courses in critical writing at the University of Pennsylvania on topics such as Imagined Evil, Apocalyptic Movies, Religion and Capitalism, the cultural history of zombies, and group culture. Phillip is currently revising his dissertation for publication and researching the role of religion in the writing pedagogy (both historical and contemporary).
B.S. in Chemistry and Letters, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003
M.Div., Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California, 2008
M.A. in History, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, 2009
Ph.D. in Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 2017
Early Christianity
Pseudepigraphy
Authorship
Forgery
Identity
Judaism
Christianity
Reception History
Religion and Composition
Material Religion
History of Material Texts
Ancient Rhetoric and Education
Writing Studies (esp. Religion and Composition)
University of Pennsylvania
Instructor of Record
Writing 002: Craft of Prose (Fall 2019 and Spring 2020)
Writing 025: Zombie Culture (two sections Fall 2019 and Spring 2020) Writing 025: Apocalypse and Film (Spring 2019, two sections)
Writing 082: Imagining Evil (Fall 2018, two sections; Spring 2019)
Writing 082: Freedom, Choice, and the Spiritual Marketplace (Fall 2018)
Writing 082: The Origins of Evil (Fall 2014 and Spring 2015)
Teaching Assistant
Religious Studies 173: Introduction to Buddhism (Spring 2012), Justin McDaniel
History 031: World of the Middle Ages (Fall 2011), Jessica Goldberg
Religious Studies 002: Religions of the West (Spring 2011), Annette Reed
Ancient History 026: Introduction to Ancient Greece (Fall 2010), Jeremy McInerney
Grader, Religious Studies 002: Religions of the West (Spring 2013 and Spring 2014)
Saint Augustine’s University
Religious Studies 232: Comparative Religions (Spring 2018)
Religious Studies 234: Introduction to the New Testament (Spring 2018)
Religious Studies 233: Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Fall 2017)
English 150: Reading Across Disciplines (Fall 2017, two sections)
Adversus Adversus Iudaeos? Countering Christian anti-Jewish Polemics in the Gospel of Nicodemus, Journal of Early Christian Studies 23.3 (2015): 413–444.
"Jew, Jews" In Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Ed. by Furey, Constance M. / Matz, Brian / McKenzie, Steven L. / Römer, Thomas Chr. / Schröter, Jens / Walfish, Barry Dov / Ziolkowski, Eric. (Berlin, Boston: DeGruyter).
Society of Biblical Literature
North American Patristics Society
American Academy of Religion
Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins (University of Pennsylvania)
Late Antique Studies Reading Group (Duke University)