Face to Face in Time and Place:
Perspectives on Place in Higher Learning
October 15-17, 2010

Gretchen Buggeln

Gretchen Buggeln holds the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christianity and the Arts. She earned a BA in history from Dartmouth College, an MA in Early American Culture from the University of Delaware, and a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. Buggeln writes and teaches about the intersection of Christian belief and the material world. Her primary research interest is American sacred spaces, and she is currently at work on a book about the ubiquitous, modern-style, suburban church of the postwar era. She has published numerous essays on the religious landscape. Her book, Temples of Grace: The Material Transformation of Connecticut’s Churches, 1790-1840 (2003) won national book awards from the Vernacular Architecture Forum and the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic. Before coming to Valparaiso University in 2004, she worked at the H.F. du Pont Winterthur Museum in Delaware, and she continues to be active in the museum field by reviewing exhibitions and writing about how museums interpret religious artifacts and belief.

Gerardo Marti
Gerardo Marti is L. Richardson King Associate Professor of Sociology at Davidson College. In addition to several journal articles, Marti is author three books: A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church (Indiana University Press, 2009); Hollywood Faith: Holiness, Prosperity, and Ambition in a Los Angeles Church (Rutgers University Press, 2008), and Worship across the Racial Divide: Notions of Race and the Practice of Religious Music in Multiracial Churches (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Marti is active in several research partnerships, and his broad interests include worship and the arts, racial and ethnic diversity, twenty- and thirty-something religion, religious innovation, and congregational responses to social change. Marti received his PhD from the University of Southern California and recently held a visiting position as the Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor of Religions Studies through the Humanities Research Center at Rice University. Marti serves on the Executive Council for the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Council of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and the Steering Committee for the Religion and Social Science Section of the American Academy of Religion. He is also an Associate Editor for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Book Review Editor-Elect for the journal Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review.

Vincent J. Miller
Vincent J. Miller was appointed as the first Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture in 2009 at the University of Dayton. Miller arrived at the University of Dayton from Georgetown University, where he was Associate Professor of Theology. Miller has published a number of articles in such journals as Theological Studies and is the author of Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (Continuum, 2003). Miller is currently working on a book about how globalization is affecting religious belief and communities. Miller earned his BA from St. Francis College and his MA and PhD from the University of Notre Dame.