Biography
Dr. Brian P. Bennett, originally from San José, California, earned his B.A. summa cum laude from Princeton and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He has taught at NU since 2001.
Focus of Teaching
Dr. Bennett teaches courses in the comparative study of religion, including
- REL 101 The Search for God
- REL 206 World Religions
- REL 230 Monastery and Megachurch
- REL 250 Comparative Religion
- REL 399 Topic: Cults
Current Research
Dr. Bennett’s research looks at interconnections between religions and languages.
Some previous publications:
- “Sacred Languages” (in The Routledge Handbook of Language and Religion, 2024)
- “Petropolis: The Place of Latin in Early Modern Russia” (in Language Dynamics in the Early Modern Period, Routledge, 2022)
- “Esperanto: One Language, Many Religions” (in Histoire culturelle de l’Europe, 2021)
- Sacred Languages of the World: An Introduction (Wiley, 2017) on Latin, Pali, Arabic, etc.
- Religion and Language in Post-Soviet Russia (Routledge, 2011) on Church Slavonic [церковнославянский язык]
Educational Background
- Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1999
- B.A., Princeton University, 1987