Religious Studies: Tod Swanson

Professor of Religious Studies
Ph.D., University of Chicago
Arrived at ASU: 1988

Office: ECA 349
Phone: (480) 965-4057
E-mail: tod.swanson@asu.edu
CV: (PDF)

Research Interests

Religion in Latin America, Religious Traditions of the Andes and Western Amazon, Religion and Nature; Religion and Health.

Biography

(Ph.D., University of Chicago) is associate professor of Christian Studies and religion in Latin American with special interest in native traditions of the Americas. He holds an M. Div from Luther Theological Seminary and has taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr. Swanson is the Director of the Andes and Amazon Field School (http://andes.asu.edu/) in Napo Province, Ecuador. He served as Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Arizona State University from 1997-2007 and as Co-Chair for the Native Traditions in the Americas section of the American Academy of Religion.

Courses Taught

REL 332 - South American Indian Religions
REL 494 – Andean Myth and Testimony
REL 494 - Amazonian Culture and Sustainable Development
REL 494 - Quichua Language and Culture
REL 494 - Ethnobotany (Amazonian plants in religious and cultural context)

Selected Publications

"A Civil Art: The Persuasive Moral Voice of Oscar Romero." Journal of
Religious Ethics, 29.1 (Spring 2001): 127-144.

"Through Family Eyes: Towards a More Adequate Perspective for Viewing Native American Religious Life." American Indian Quarterly, 21.1 (Winter, 1997): 57-71.

"Refusing to Drink with the Mountains: Traditional Andean Meanings in Evangelical Testimonies." In Martin Marty, ed., Accounting for Fundamentalism: The Dynamic Character of Fundamentalist Movements. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994, 79-98.

"An Ungodly Resemblance: Colonial Violence and Inca Analogies to Christianity." In Theophus H. Smith and Mark I. Wallace, eds., Curing Violence: Religion and the Thought of Rene Girard. Sonoma: Polbridge Press, 1994, 103-18.

"To Prepare a Place: The Collapse of Ethnic Territories in Johannine Christianity." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62 (1994): 101-123.

"Weathered Characters: Envy and Response to the Seasons in North and South American Indian Morality." Journal of Religious Ethics 92 (1992): 601-630.