2023 Barth Graduate Student Colloquium

Morgan Bell (he/him) is a doctoral candidate at Emmanuel College in the University of Toronto. His doctoral research explores Karl Barth’s doctrine of God the Father in the light of contemporary trinitarian, queer, and feminist discourses. Morgan is in ministry in The United Church of Canada, serving on the Roman Catholic-United Church National Dialogue and at St. Andrew’s United Church in downtown Toronto.

I am a first-year DPhil student in modern theology at the University of Oxford. My research is broadly focused on the legacy of nineteenth-century Christian theology, and the topic of my dissertation is on the pneumatological dimensions of Ernst Troeltsch’s theology. Most recently, before moving to the UK, I was working at a Chinese church in Seattle, my hometown. Prior to that, I earned a BA in Philosophy, Religion, and Classics from Calvin University, and an MAR in Philosophy of Religion from Yale Divinity School.

Frank Della Torre is a PhD student in Theological Studies at Baylor University. He holds a MATS from Princeton Theological Seminary and a BA in Philosophy from Wheaton College (IL). His primary research interest focuses on the political theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, particularly Bonhoeffer’s conception of the divine mandates (family, labor, government, and church), as a constructive resource for contemporary Christian social ethics. His secondary research interests are in modern and political theology as well as modern philosophy and continental philosophy of religion.

Jason Oliver Evans (he/him/his) is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. Evans is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of Christian systematic theology with theological and social ethics, Black critical thought, Africana religious criticism, Black feminist theory and queer theory. Evans primarily studies the areas of Christology, soteriology, creation, and theological anthropology. In his work, Evans considers how the interrelationship of race, sexuality, and gender broadly factors into the study of Christian faith and practice. Previously, Evans earned a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia (2022), a Master of Theology from Candler School of Theology at Emory University (2013), a Master of Divinity from Duke University Divinity School (2012), and a Bachelor of Science in speech communication from Millersville University of Pennsylvania (2008). An ordained minister in the American Baptist Churches USA, Inc., Evans currently serves as an associate minister at the historic St. Paul’s Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In his spare time, Evans enjoys cooking, baking, reading cookbooks and food magazines, and binge-watching cooking shows.

Antavius Franklin is a Ph.D. Candidate in Systematic Theology at Fordham University. He works at the intersections of black (religious) study, theological anthropology, Afrofuturism, and sound studies. His research primarily focuses on how the sonic (Jazz and Southern Hip Hop) challenges and expands our conceptions of blackness and its relationship to time and space in modernity to rethink blackness’ relationship to both eschatology and revelation. He is also interested in reading and engaging both afropessimist and black nihilist discourses to explore antiblackness as a theological concern that sits at the center of the study of black religion and theology.

Joe Kauslick is a researcher, educator, and practitioner in Christian theology and ministry, and a PhD Candidate in Theological Studies with a Certificate in Religion and Conflict Transformation at Boston University School of Theology. With his partner, Anna, he also co-administrates and lives at the International Fellowship House in Boston, MA, a faith-based housing community of international students from all backgrounds. His dissertation is a political theology of accountability inspired by the theology of Karl Barth in conversation with the pragmatist philosophy of Robert Brandom and the democratic traditionalism of Jeffrey Stout. The theopolitical conception of accountability he provides makes use of, develops, and extends pragmatist work in democracy to fruitfully develop a Barth-inspired understanding of accountability useful for Christian and democratic discourses. His scholarship emphasizes the intersection of and dialogue between theological reflection and inquiry in the academy and in ecclesial, public, lay and political communities and institutions; investigates the role of Christian people, practices, and reflection in secular or pluralistic communities and endeavors; and seeks to identify, analyze, critique, and dialectically overcome polarizations endemic to public and academic Christian theological discourse and practice through rigorous philosophical analysis. He deploys and advocates for his own Christian and democratic commitments, employs immanent criticism and charitable readings of alternative perspectives, and offers his point of view to any and all who share an interest and stake in the topics he addresses and the proposals he makes—thus making them public.

Maxine King is a master’s student of theology at Virginia Theological Seminary. Her current writing is on Karl Barth and the God-world relationship in trans theology. She is an enthusiastic lay person and cantor in the Episcopal Church.

Enoch H. Kuo (he/him) is a doctoral candidate in the department of Religion at Princeton University. His research sits at the intersections of theology, political theory, and the history of science. His dissertation, “Schleiermacher’s Rechtslehre: Political Economy, Sovereignty, and Right in Political-Theological Perspective” attempts to recover the significance of F.D.E. Schleiermacher’s innovative political philosophy for re-envisioning conversations about religion and science through a political lens more attentive to the power-dynamics which structure scientific and ecclesiological endeavors.

David is a PhD student in Theological Studies at Emory University. His research involves understanding the legacy of Christian supersessionism and the theopolitical potentials for post-supersessionism. Working at the intersection of politics, ethics, and conventional systematic theology, he hopes to develop new ways of understanding the identity of the church in contemporary society.

Sara Mannen currently lives in Aberdeen, Scotland with her husband and two daughters. She is finishing her PhD on the concept of divine personhood in Karl Barth at the University of Aberdeen under the supervision of Tom Greggs. Sara’s current work is reflected in her recently published article on the topic of Barth and divine personhood. Before relocating to the UK, Sara received her master’s degree in Theological Studies at Multnomah University where she taught systematic theology. Sara’s theological interests include modern and contemporary doctrine of God, patristic theology, and the connection between systematic theology and other theological disciplines. Sara’s passion for theology is matched by her love for teaching theology from the university classroom to her local church and community.

Shelly Penton is a Ph.D. Candidate in Modern and Contemporary Religious Thought at the University of Virginia. Her research lies at the intersection of religious studies, memory studies, and media studies. More specifically, her work grapples with narrations of race and history in contemporary film, turning to cultural memory studies and the Jewish and Christian traditions to rethink epistemological questions and categories. Penton holds an MDiv from Vanderbilt University and an MA in Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture from the University of Chicago.

Darren is a graduate student in the Department of Religion at Princeton University in the religion, ethics, and politics subfield. He writes at the intersection of political theory and religious ethics. His current research project is on the philosophy of non-violence and democratic theory in the 20th century.