Faculty and Staff

Dorothy Rogers, chair, received a PhD from Boston University. Her research interests include: women in the history of philosophy, faith-state issues in America, and the theoretical foundations of public/political altruism. She teaches courses including: Religion and Ethics, Politics, and Law in America; Philosophy of Religion; and Women and Religion. Her publications include: “Birthmothers and Maternal Identity,” (in Coming to Life: Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering, by LaChance and Lundquist; Fordham, 2012), “The Other Philosophy Club: America’s First Academic Women Philosophers,” (in Hypatia, 2009), and America’s First Women Philosophers: Transplanting Hegel (Continuum, 2005).

Maureen Corbeski is the program assistant for the Department of Religion. She received a BS from the University of Caldwell.

Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor, received a PhD in Religion and Culture from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. His primary research area is the Native North American encounter with Christianity.  His current research explores the intersection of religion and environmental justice. He teaches courses including Native American Religions, Religious Experience, Interreligious Encounters, Christian Liberation Theologies, Religion and Social Activism and Introduction to Religion. His latest book project is Crow Jesus: First-Person Narratives of Native American Religious Belonging published by the University of Oklahoma Press (2017). He is also the author of Demons, Saints, & Patriots: Catholic Visions of Native America (1902-1962) published by Marquette University Press (2009).  Dr. Clatterbuck is currently working on a research project titled “Faith on the Frontlines: Religious Eco-Activism in an Age of Climate Crisis.” The field-based research project is funded by a generous grant (2020-2021) through the Louisville Institute. The forthcoming book and companion website will feature a variety of religious communities across the US that are engaged in creative, spiritually motivated environmental activism.

Yasir Ibrahim, associate professor, received a PhD in Islamic Studies from Princeton University. His research interests include the study of modern religious reform, Islamic ethics and legal theory, and Qur’anic studies. He teaches courses including: Islamic Religious Traditions; Introduction to the Qur’an; Islam in the Contemporary World; Jihad, Just War and the Prospect of Peace; and Islamic Ethics and Law. His publications include articles in the journals Studia Islamica, Journal of Islamic Studies, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and The Journal of the Middle East and Africa.  Dr. Ibrahim is currently working on a book project titled “The Art of Qur’anic Recitation between Tradition and Reform”.

Minji Lee, assistant professor, holds an MA from Seoul National University and a PhD in Religion from Rice University in Houston, Texas.  She joins the Department of Religion after serving as a Visiting Scholar in the Medical Humanities Program at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Dr. Lee specializes in the study of medicine in relation to cultural practices and belief systems – including women’s health, reproductive issues, and comparative analysis of alternative medicine in Korea and the United States.  She brings with her an active research agenda, having produced several peer-reviewed articles and conference papers, such as “Woman’s Body In-Between: The Holy and Monstrous Womb in Medieval Medicine and Religion” and “The Me-Too Movement and the Church’s Reaction in Korea.”  Dr. Lee also brings a demonstrated record of excellence in pedagogy and will teach courses in both the Department of Religion and the new Medical Humanities major in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

John Soboslai, assistant professor, received a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include: the comparative study of religious violence and the relationship between religion and the state in an increasingly interconnected global society. He teaches courses such as: Death, Dying, and the Afterlife; Religion and Culture; and Religion and Politics, and is the co-author of God in the Tumult of the Global Square (with Mark Juergensmeyer and Dinah Griego, University of California Press [2015]). He is currently working on a book titled Witnessing Death: Global Ideologies of Martyrdom which comparatively analyzes martyrdoms within several religious traditions and time periods.

Dr. Kate E. Temoney is a former Assistant Dean of Students and currently an Assistant Professor. She is the co-chair of the Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Unit of the American Academy of Religion and a co-founder of the Genocide Education and Prevention Project (GEAPP). She earned a BA from Wake Forest University, an MEd from The College of William & Mary, and an MA and PhD from Florida State University. Trained as a comparative religious ethicist, Dr. Temoney’s research interests include human rights, genocide, and theory of history; her international publications and presentations address the intersections of religion, human rights, and mass atrocities. A selection of her recent and forthcoming works are: Anatomizing White Rage: ‘Race is My Religion!’ and ‘White Genocide,’” The Religion of White Rage: White Workers, Religious Fervor, and the Myth of Racial Progress (University of Edinburgh Press, 2020); “An Assessment of the Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes,” Routledge Handbook on Religion and Genocide (Routledge, forthcoming); and an “Historical Understanding and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict,” Historical Understanding, co-author Berber Bevernage (Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming). Her courses include the Holocaust: Religious Perspectives, Applied Jewish Ethics, African Religions, Religions of the World, Religious Ethics, and Religion and Human Rights.

David Benfield, Ph.D., Brown University; M.A., Brown University; B.A., St. John’s College.  Dr. Benfield was a member of the faculty at Montclair State from 1972 until 2015, and he served as deputy chair of the department and was a devoted student advisor for the majority of that time.  Dr. Benfield taught courses on epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion. He is now active in Montclair State University Emeritus faculty and retirement networks.

Stephen Johnson, Ph.D., M.Phil., Yale University; M.A., Marquette University; B.A., Spring Hill College.  Dr. Johnson taught in the Department of Religion from 1972 until 2015, specializing in religion in America, religion and psychology, and religion and myth.  He was active in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Academy of Religion, holding leadership positions in the organization for many years.  He is now enjoying retirement while he spends time with his family.

Michael Kogan, Ph.D., B.A., Syracuse University.  Dr. Kogan taught at Montclair State University from 1973 to 2015 and served as chair of the department for a total of twenty-four years (1984-2008).  He taught courses on Jewish and Christian religious texts and on the philosophical and religious thought of Kierkegaard, Heidegger and T. S. Eliot.  Throughout his career, Dr. Kogan was deeply engaged in public discourse, and he continues to be active in education and community work in Charleston, South Carolina.

In Memoriam

Eva Fleischner, Ph.D., Marquette University; M.A., University of Notre Dame; B.A., Radcliffe College.  Born in Vienna, Austria, Dr. Fleischner’s family emigrated to the U.S. after Hitler’s rise to power.  She worked in international Catholic and ecumenical circles before completing her doctorate with a dissertation on the Holocaust.  She then joined the faculty at Montclair State University, teaching courses on Jewish-Christian dialogue from 1975 until her retirement in 1991.  Toward the end of her life, Dr. Fleischner lived at an ecumenical retirement community in Claremont, California, where she died in the summer of 2020.