Dr. Brian P. Bennett
Professor
Dunleavy Hall - Third Floor, Room 324
Office Hours:
MWF: 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Phone: 716.286.8454
Website:
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
- REL101 The Search for God
- REL 206 World Religions
- REL 230 Monastery and Megachurch
- REL 250 Comparative Religion
- REL 280 Hieroglyphs to Hashtags
- REL 399 Topic: Cults
- REL 399 Topic: Godless Utopia (about the Soviet Union)
- REL399 Topic: Religion & Disability (focus on Braille and ASL)
Current Research
Dr. Bennett’s research looks at interconnections between religions and languages. His current project is on the religious significance of Braille.
Some previous publications:
- “Esperanto: One Language, Many Religions” (in Histoire culturelle de l’Europe, 2022)
- “Petropolis: The Place of Latin in Early Modern Russia” (in Language Dynamics in the Early Modern Period, Routledge, 2022)
- 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