We are pleased to announce that the CTEA has hired Dr. Hannah Grace Howard as a Postdoctoral Fellow within the Department of Religion at UGA! Dr. Howard recently received her PhD and will begin at UGA in Fall 2025. 

Over the course of her three-year postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Howard will work with CTEA Director, Dr. Derrick Lemons, on the third phase of TEA research funded by the Templeton Foundation. This collaborative project, "Between Relativism and Reproach: Exploring Value Judgements about Good Human Lives within Theologically Engaged Anthropology," will continue to elevate the central questions and contributions of TEA in wider academic discourse. This project addresses the question: how can anthropologists and theologians responsibly navigate the extremes of relativism and unreflexive judgmentalism to support good human lives? While both disciplines have explored the concept of good human lives, a collaborative approach is urgently needed to tackle the analytical challenges posed by relativism, which can devolve into amoral nihilism, and judgmentalism, which risks becoming moralistic reproach. By combining theological insights with anthropological methodologies, this project seeks to establish a robust framework for assessing religious doctrines and practices in ways that meaningfully contribute to living good human lives.

In order to facilitate this work, Dr. Lemons and Dr. Howard will attend multiple conferences, organize a series of collaborative scholarly workshops, and co-edit a special journal issue. In addition, Dr. Howard will take on the teaching of three courses at UGA: Theologically Engaged Anthropology, the Anthropology of Religion, and Introduction to Religious Thought.