Dr. J. R. Hustwit

B.A., University of Texas; M.A., Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University

Bio:

My goal in the classroom is to introduce each student to a sense of calling and assist them in developing the skills and knowledge they will need to pursue that calling.

I am a philosopher of religion and a theologian by training. My research concerns looking for truth in multiple religions. In 2014, I wrote Interreligious Hermeneutics and the Pursuit of Truth (Lexington Books), which discussed how the ubiquity of interpretation in the human mind explains how we can be realists about more than one religion without dismissing religious diversity. A number of subsequent journal articles and book chapters explore the implications of this thesis. I am also interested in process philosophy, which involves the claim that events and processes are more fundamentally real than substances, and the pedagogy of vocation.

I have taught courses in logic; modern theology; East Asian religions and philosophy; South Asian religions and philosophy; monotheism and violence; angels, demons, and jinn; mystical literature; science and religion, and the feminine divine. I am honored to have been awarded Methodist University Exemplary Teacher Award in 2013 and to have been recognized as one of the Fayetteville Observer’s “Forty under 40” in 2015.

I am also an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to running, watch design, listening to loud music, fishing, cooking and baking, science fiction and fantasy novels, native gardening, and local ecology.

A more-or-less complete list of my publications can be found on Google Scholar.