The Department of Religion is proud to announce the establishment of the annual Peter J. Awn Undergraduate Paper Award. Peter was a treasured colleague and friend who, in addition to serving as Dean of Columbia’s School of General Studies for twenty years, was an active professor of Religion, an erudite scholar of Islam and Islamic mysticism, and a brilliant teacher and mentor. Through his teaching Peter invited countless Columbia students into the modes of thinking, reading, and scholarly questioning that are at the heart of religious studies and of humanistic inquiry.

Congratulations to second year Doctoral student, Samuel Stella, for the publication of his article, The Second Great Awakening and the Built Landscape of Missouri in the special joint issue of the Journal of the Center for the Material and Visual Culture of Religion and the Journal of Southern Religion.

Congratulations to Yanchen Liu, doctoral student focusing on Christianity, for being awarded the Heckman Stipend by the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library. Yanchen will use this stipend to conduct research in the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in January of 2020.