Six rising juniors have been named members of the tenth class of Multifaith Scholars, a two-year fellows program for juniors and seniors that offers a closely mentored, experientially rich and intellectually rigorous educational opportunity for students with significant potential.

After a highly selective application and interview process, students are awarded $5,000 annually to support research and study in global contexts connected with religious diversity and multi-religious societies. Students who show great potential as academically curious and socially engaged leaders committed to their own ongoing development and the enhancement of their local and global communities are selected each spring.

“I am delighted to welcome these six impressive rising juniors into the Multifaith Scholars program and look forward to supporting their compelling projects over the next two years,” said Amy Allocco, director of the Multifaith Scholars program. “Their research interests include music and Christian religious experience, linguistic anthropology and the vocabulary of faith, religious diversity in clinical settings, gender and religious roles in Asian art, the intersection of biomedicine and traditional healing practices and the history of Black churches here in Alamance County.”

In addition to pursuing their faculty-mentored undergraduate research projects and undertaking academic coursework in religious studies and interreligious studies, the scholars will extend the program’s ongoing community partnership with the Burlington Masjid. Through the partnership, scholars teach English classes, participate in youth and social events with the local Muslim community, join community garden workdays, volunteer with the food pantry and take part in potlucks and iftar meals during Ramadan.

“It is wonderful to welcome such a strong class with such diverse academic interests,” reflected Brian Pennington, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, which supports the Multifaith Scholars program. “As we approach the tenth anniversary of the MFS, it is gratifying to see so many clear signs of the program’s maturity and significance: our largest class ever, the inclusion of seven new faculty mentors, and students majoring in three disciplines never before represented in MFS.”

The 2026-2028 Multifaith Scholars

Addison Anderson

Majors: History, Sociology

Minors: Museum Studies, Public History, and Interreligious Studies

Mentor: Amanda Kleintop (History and Geography)

Project Title: History and Memory of Alamance County’s Black Churches

Proposed Research: Examine the relationship between Alamance County African American churches and local politics in North Carolina from Reconstruction through 1900.

Blair Berenson

Major: Anthropology

Minors: Jewish Studies, Sociology, Philosophy and Interreligious Studies

Mentors: Amy Allocco (Religious Studies) and Devin Proctor (Sociology & Anthropology)

Project Title: An Anthropological Approach to Cross-Generational Shifts in Hindu and Jewish Perspectives of Faith in the US

Proposed Research: Conduct fieldwork in Jewish and Hindu communities in Atlanta to understand how different generations articulate the concept of faith.

Katie Castelo

Major: Biochemistry

Minors: Neuroscience, Spanish, and Interreligious Studies

Mentor: Cathy Quay (Nursing)

Project Title: Bridging Faith and Medicine: Improving Cultural Awareness of Religious Practices in the Healthcare System

Proposed Research: Explore the healthcare industry’s approach to death and ways it can be more open to diverse religious practices.

Faith Elliott

Major: Neuroscience

Minors: Expressive Arts and Interreligious Studies

Mentors: Lynn Huber (Religious Studies) and Morgan Patrick (Music Theory)

Project Title: Neurotheology: An Interdisciplinary Study into Sacred Music and Feelings of Well-Being

Proposed Research: Examine the historical significance of music and understand and measure the behavioral impact associated with an emotional, transcendent spiritual experience and the well-being that results from listening.

Mariama Jalloh

Major: Public Health

Minors: Biology and Interreligious Studies

Mentor: Sandra Darfour-Oduro (Public Health)

Project Title: Faith, Healers, and Health: How Religious Beliefs and Community Trust Shape Healthcare Decisions in West African Communities

Proposed Research: Examine how religious leaders and traditional healers influence healthcare decisions in communities in Ghana, and how public health programs can partner with these practitioners to improve health education outcomes.

Ryleigh Rouse

Majors: Art History, Religious Studies

Minors: Museum Studies and Public History and Asian Studies

Mentor: Kirstin Ringelberg (Art History)

Project Title: Religion’s Impact on Japanese Women: Through an Art Historical Lens

Proposed Research: Employ art as a lens to examine how religion shaped gender perceptions and Japanese women’s roles.

Jassal’s research centers on the dynamic relationships among person, place and divinity in South Asia, particularly in the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand in northern India. Through years of ethnographic fieldwork, he has explored how Hindu communities actively construct and experience sacred worlds through ritual practices such as shrine-building, pilgrimage, festival celebrations and spirit possession.

A key theme of the lecture was the idea that Hindu deities are not fixed but relational and mobile, often requiring “placemaking” practices to remain connected to human communities. Jassal discussed how rituals—including the relocation of deities to more suitable or accessible sites—serve as what he described as “technologies of healing” that reshape social realities. These practices, he argued, reveal the agency not only of human participants but also of non-human actors, such as deities themselves.

In addition to the lecture, Jassal shared a short documentary film, offering students a vivid, sensory perspective on his research. The film emphasized the importance of sound, movement, and atmosphere—elements that written ethnography alone cannot fully capture. Students noted that this visual component deepened their understanding of the material, making the lived realities of ritual practice more tangible.

The day prior to his lecture, Jassal participated in a casual lunch with students, creating space for informal conversation about his work, academic journey and the role of storytelling in research. Attendees described him as engaging, passionate and genuinely enthusiastic about student curiosity and dialogue. Following lunch, Jassal also visited Amy Allocco’s 4000-level Religious Studies seminar, “Ghosts Demons, and Ancestors in Asian Religions,” where students had been assigned chapters of his book and came prepared to engage directly with his research. During the class, students asked questions about Jassal’s fieldwork, methods, and key concepts like placemaking, creating an interactive and discussion-based environment. The session allowed students to connect course material with a guest scholar, deepening their understanding through conversation and critical engagement. Jassal emphasized the importance of intellectual openness and positionality in ethnographic research. His reflections encouraged students to think critically about how knowledge is produced and whose voices are amplified.

By the end of the lecture, it was clear that Jassal’s work not only expands scholarly conversations about religion and anthropology but also resonates deeply with students exploring questions of culture, practice, and representation. His visit left a lasting impression the importance of bringing diverse worlds into conversation.

The series is a multi-volume set that surveys the social and cultural construction of specific subjects across six historical periods, from Antiquity to the Modern Age. Otieno’s chapter, titled “Poverty and Gender: A Cultural History,” appears in Volume 6 of the Anthology, “A Cultural History of Poverty,” edited by Steven Beaudoin and Richard Axtell, which covers the Modern Age.

The chapter thoughtfully applies insights from Womanist and African feminist thinkers to examine poverty and gender as central global ethical issues. It discusses how Nnobi women in Igboland, Nigeria, historically challenged gender and patriarchal norms by leveraging religio-cultural categories to gain wealth and influence. Highlighting the persistence of the gender pay gap, it notes that labor and wages are largely male-centered and thus discriminate against non-male agents.

By explaining how women and LGBTQ individuals navigate these constraints, Otieno argues that women and other genders tend to produce unusual labor market outcomes, which are still measured using male statistics and language, thereby greatly undermining their effort, productivity and value.

The chapter also advocates viewing poverty as a collective moral issue rooted in communities rather than in individual agents, emphasizing how labor markets continue to erode traditional religio-cultural practices across Africa and Asia, such as the selection of trokosi shrine guardians in Ghana and the exploitation of widows and their inheritance in various African contexts.

Covering broad global issues faced by women, the chapter underscores how systemic poverty affects women worldwide. It calls for just treatment and community-focused socioethical interventions to address the disproportionate impact of capitalist systems on non-male laborers and their labor.

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• Strategic multifaith engagement shapes the Elon campus experience
• Elon welcomes ninth class of Multifaith Scholars

At 51±ŹÁÏÍű, faculty say preparing students means helping them understand the people they will interact with throughout their lives, and that includes the influence of faith and religious identity.

That commitment to multifaith understanding is a primary goal of the university’s Multifaith Strategic Plan, which strives to “support opportunities for multifaith learning and engagement for all members of the academic community.”

“Elon’s Multifaith Strategic Plan is a promise to our students, faculty, staff and the wider community that we will take them seriously as whole, complex people,” said Brian Pennington, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society.

The multifaith experience

The Multifaith Scholars Program is a two-year program, founded in 2016, that emphasizes interdisciplinary learning as student scholars undertake original research projects and study in global contexts connected with religious diversity and multireligious societies.

“Our work is richer when we have students bringing questions from their own disciplines,” said Amy Allocco, director of the program and professor of religious studies. “It is a sign of a vibrant campus ecosystem when not only students but also their mentors can see their interests and expertise  intersect with questions of interreligious contact, religion and society.”

Allocco says that the breadth of disciplines represented by students and mentors participating in the program has widened each year. The current cohort includes students with diverse majors such as psychology, theatrical design, history, economics consulting, political science, religious studies, and international and global Studies. Owen Hayes ’26, a history major with minors in political science and religious studies, is a 2024-2026 Multifaith Scholar studying the historical and contemporary relationship between Christian missionaries and Indigenous Australians.

“I’ve always been interested in understanding the interreligious encounters of the world, like global Christianity and understanding how different communities can come together and understand such an important religious concept in such different, varying ways, but still have that belief of Christianity,” Hayes said.

The interreligious studies minor also allows students to analyze the historical and contemporary encounters between and interactions among religious communities and traditions.

“Elon has done incredible work in enfranchising multifaith as an academic as well as a student affairs initiative and aligning and even blending those areas in meaningful ways that enhance the student experience,” Allocco said.

Multifaith in the classroom (and clinic)

In the Department of Nursing, faculty don’t just train future healthcare professionals on specific medical assessments but, as Assistant Professor of Nursing Lori Hubbard says, they “prepare students for the diversity in the populations they will serve,” including religion.

“Diversity in people is understanding their religious background, because religious practices are often infused into health practices and health beliefs,” said Hubbard, who teaches the Healthcare Relationships course, which focuses on understanding diverse backgrounds in healthcare.

The course is just one component of the Department of Nursing’s commitment to equitable healthcare teaching, which is incorporated throughout the curriculum.

“From birth to death and everywhere in between, the people that are going to be important in a person’s wellness or their healing may come from their church body,” said Hubbard, who says they also want students to understand the role of the chaplain in a hospital setting. “People may have members of a church congregation bring them meals, they may have pastors and friends visit to pray with them. A person’s support network is a social determinant of health.”

In December 2025, a faculty team consisting of Pennington, Jeanmarie Koonts, assistant professor of nursing; Molly Green, assistant professor of public health, and Helen Orr, assistant professor of religious studies, was awarded a $60,000 Faith & Health Campus Grant from Interfaith America to promote awareness of how religious diversity impacts healthcare space and medical decision-making.

Engineering a multifaith course

Along with nursing, several Elon courses across disciplines integrate multifaith understanding. Orr is co-teaching a new course, Engineering A Better World, with Professor of Engineering Sirena Hargrove-Leak on ethical practices in engineering.

“Religion is an important category for a lot of people, and it informs not only beliefs, but also everyday practice and ritual, including when people fast, how they dress and how they interact in professional spaces,” Orr said. “One of our sessions in the course focuses on the value of multi-faith spaces in professional working environments. Those spaces can be beneficial both for religious people and non-religious people, while also encouraging us to think about how environments themselves can be designed to be more inclusive.”

Hargrove Leak says the engineering curriculum requires an ethics course and, historically, faculty advised students to choose an ethics course through the Core Curriculum. The downside, she says, is they may not connect what they’re learning to engineering practice. This new course, she says, connects the dots directly.

“The work of engineering professionals has the potential to impact people directly; therefore, ethical practice is critically important,” said Hargrove-Leak.

Communicating religion

While Orr and Hargrove-Leak’s course is new this semester, Professor of Journalism Anthony Hatcher has been studying and teaching the intersection of religion and media for more than 20 years. His course Religion and Media analyzes how the two interact through media coverage of religious issues and themes, religion’s use of television and the Internet and media portrayals of religious people and traditions.

Hatcher began teaching the course in 2003, coming from a longtime interest in the intersection of the two subjects.

“It has always sparked my interest how religion intersects not only with a news item, but how it intersects with popular culture,” he said. “I tell my students, ‘If there is a secular entity of some sort, there is a religious corollary to it.’”

Finding religious connections in culture is endless for Hatcher, who says he never runs out of material for the course. For one assignment, students must attend a house of worship outside of their own faith and do a research project on the experience. The projects range from more well-known religious practices to lesser-known, like a student who visited a coven of witches in Hillsborough, North Carolina

“I make it clear: this is not a religion class. I’m not here to teach you about the scripture,” Hatcher said. “When they go (to these houses of worship), it’s not just a religious thing. I say, ‘What kind of media did they use? Do they have cameras? Do they have a single microphone? Do they use screens and slides? Is it a majestic organ? What are you seeing there? Did they give you a paper program? Everything that’s media.’ It gets them thinking about all the mediated ways that they experience religion.”

The course is open to all majors, and Hatcher says it can be relevant for all professions.

“The subject matter is so important,” Hatcher said. “It’s like how study abroad is mind-broadening. I think understanding where somebody else comes from, especially if faith is a big part of who they are, is a big deal.”

And for Pennington, Elon’s approach to multifaith learning is an example for others to follow.

“We live in a moment where we can clearly see that the faith commitments and religious practices interact with our global politics, our legal systems, our media environments, and our healthcare systems,” said Pennington. “By attending to multifaith education across academic departments and programs, Elon is leading the way in preparing its students for a rapidly evolving world.”

This story is part of a series of stories focusing on 51±ŹÁÏÍű’s Multifaith Strategic Plan. 

Vasudha Narayanan, distinguished professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Religion, introduced Allocco’s keynote. Allocco focused her lecture on pampaikkārar, musicians who play the twin-headed set of drums known as pampai and sing to invoke the deities in diverse Hindu devotional contexts. Drawing on material from her recently completed sabbatical fieldwork project in Tamil-speaking South India, she highlighted the role of pampaikkārar as both musicians and ritual specialists who invoke deities through sound. She argued that these practitioners innovatively adapt their performances in response to changing aesthetic preferences, devotional needs and social contexts while both maintaining credibility and inspiring the “god-feeling” referenced in the title of her presentation. Allocco also reflected on her own research methods, emphasizing how fieldwork relationships as well as lived traditions shape scholarly questions and, by extension, outcomes.

Following her address, Allocco met with graduate students for an hour-long seminar on methodologies for the study of religion, where emerging researchers had the opportunity to ask questions about ethnography and research ethics as well as their own projects. Participants read two of Allocco’s journal articles, which had been selected by conference organizers as the starting point for this seminar.

On Saturday morning, Allocco delivered welcome remarks to inaugurate the full day of paper sessions. The symposium was sponsored by the University of Florida’s Department of Religion with support from its Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.

They stood poised with their hands raised, breathing steady, before their fists began to fly. Jab, cross, right hook, left upper cut.

They noticed the sensations in their body as childhood memories raced through their mind, allowing themself to feel every feeling that remained with them from a time when they didn’t have a voice. With every punch, they stepped closer to regaining their power, closer to a deeper understanding of their full self.

Danielle Martinelli-Taylor ’12 says the physical movement often allows clients to recognize and begin healing younger parts of themselves that were never fully seen or supported. “Through the movement, through fighting back against that, they were able to trust themself more.”

A licensed professional counselor, Martinelli-Taylor centers her Denver practice, Animo Counseling and Coaching, on healing the whole person. Among the approaches she uses is somatic boxing, a method that connects mind and body to help clients process trauma and strengthen their overall well-being.

“We’re interconnected beings,” she says. “Our bodies hold just as much of our story as our minds do, and healing happens when we learn how to listen to both.”

A Non-Linear Path

Martinelli-Taylor’s journey toward counseling wasn’t straightforward, but every step helped develop the empathy, critical thinking and global perspective that shapes her work. The Massachusetts native wasn’t familiar with Elon before stumbling upon it while touring colleges along the East Coast. She was immediately drawn to its arts and sciences foundation, small class sizes and study abroad program.

She enrolled Early Decision, planning to study education, but soon found that teaching wasn’t her passion. She did, however, have a knack for fostering strong one-on-one connections, and she found other ways to build those skills through a strategic communications major and religious studies minor.

“There’s a lot of psychology in strategic communications, learning what are people’s needs, what do they want, why do they do what they do. I loved that aspect,” Martinell-Taylor says. “Then my religious studies minor was just a window to the world of what other people believe, why they believe it and how that directs their decisions, hopes and dreams.”

But it was her semester abroad in London that influenced her most, broadening her worldview and clarifying what she did and didn’t want to pursue post-graduation. She interned for a fashion supplier on Oxford Street but didn’t feel a strong connection to the work. She loved London, though, and wanted to use her communications skills in service of something she cared about deeply.

After graduating, she returned to London for two years, working with an international mission organization that supported churches and other spiritual communities. Martinelli-Taylor spent much of her time connecting with South Asian women, children and teens and found their conversations about life and struggle deeply meaningful. On weekends, she volunteered with a nonprofit fighting human trafficking, a cause that first sparked her interest through an Elon course examining slavery in the Bible, in American history and in modern times. Again and again, she found herself drawn to work that offered support to people during some of the most difficult moments of their lives.

“I was hearing people’s trauma, hearing really difficult life journeys and feeling this pull,” Martinelli-Taylor says. “If people have gone through these really awful things, forced into things they had no control over, how do I step into that world?”

That realization ignited Martinelli-Taylor’s calling to be a counselor. She moved back to the U.S. and earned her master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from Denver Seminary in 2019. Her communications, religious studies and study abroad experience from her time at Elon remained foundational as she forged this new path.

L.D. Russell, senior lecturer emeritus of religious studies at Elon, remembers Martinelli-Taylor as open-minded, eager to learn and deeply committed to helping others. Her unique counseling approach feels like a natural extension of that spirit. “One of the truest values of an Elon education,” he says, “is gaining a clearer sense of how others live and move through the world, and how our own gifts can be used to foster the public good.”

The Mind-Body Connection

After obtaining her master’s degree, Martinelli-Taylor again used her skills to support human trafficking victims, providing counseling to survivors with complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She later moved to a group practice, helping clients with a broader range of issues such as anxiety, depression, trauma and grief.

In graduate school, she began to learn how physical movement, education and preventative work can help set clients up for a healthier life and resiliency amid difficult challenges. That idea coupled with her own personal experience with boxing prompted her to try bilateral boxing as a technique with some clients at the group practice. “It was starting to help people break out of dissociation and get into their body,” Martinelli-Taylor says. “We used it as a tool when they felt stuck or overwhelmed with talk therapy.”

As she saw the approach resonate with more clients, Martinelli-Taylor set out to develop it further and open her own practice. Drawing on her strategic communications background, she built the foundation for her business while consulting with counselors who use somatic therapies that link breath, body and mental health. In 2024 she founded Animo Counseling and Coaching, where she offers treatments such as Accelerated Resolution Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and her own style of somatic boxing therapy.

Animo means “mind” in Latin, “soul” and “courage” in Italian and “encouragement” in Spanish. “The practice reflects that intentionality, that purposefulness,” she says. “It represents the embodiment of the brain and body’s role in learning about yourself.”

Our bodies hold just as much of our story as our minds do, and healing happens when we learn how to listen to both. — Danielle Martinelli-Taylor ’12

Martinelli-Taylor first teaches her clients the basics of non-contact boxing, using the bilateral movements of boxing but no sparring, just hitting boxing gloves to mitts as the whole body engages. She focuses on proper form and breathwork, guiding clients to concentrate on each motion. The practice becomes a type of moving meditation, stimulating both sides of the body and both hemispheres of the brain.

For many clients, the approach offers another avenue for healing, especially for those who may not feel ready to talk through difficult experiences right away. By focusing on the rhythm of movement and breath, clients begin to notice what their bodies and minds are holding, and shift it out.

Once clients feel comfortable with the technique, she introduces strategies for building courage, managing stress and emotions, and processing difficult memories. The approach encourages people to tune in to the physical sensations that often accompany mental health struggles, opening the door to more holistic healing. Movement and breathwork, Martinelli-Taylor says, can help move through distress, regulate mood and ground the body to allow clients to face and work through deeper challenges.

In addition to continuing to grow her practice, Martinelli-Taylor hopes to conduct larger studies on the impact of somatic boxing on mental health. And while she is there to support her clients in the “ring” when they need it, she doesn’t expect them to rely on a coach forever. Her goal is to help people build the awareness and tools to continue the work on their own — to trust their bodies, their instincts and their capacity to heal.

“I want them to feel like they’re equipped to learn and grow,” Martinelli-Taylor says. “They can take this work, try it out in the world and know that they’re resilient.”

During the panel, moderated by Jason Kirk, professor of political science and policy studies, each professor used their academic research to explain the “hows, whys and whats” of the war.

“We are in a very different media and political economy compared to a generation ago,” said Kirk, “and that will be the deciding factor of how we view and remember this conflict.”

Baris Kesgin, associate professor of political science and public policy, explained the Iranian political system in which religious authority and democratic practices play a part in governing society. Using graphs that outlined the political hierarchy, Kesgin emphasized the seriousness of the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and how Iran selected their new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.

“Iran is not completely a theocracy and not essentially a democracy,” Kesgin said.

Thomas Kerr, assistant teaching professor of political science and public policy, discussed the U.S. military, noting that, although the United States has the largest military in the world, it does not have unlimited resources. Regardless, Kerr explained, even with fewer available resources to defend other bases, the United States has proven in previous conflicts to beat Chinese war technology that is being used by Iran currently.

“The more we [the United States] dedicate our resources in Iran, means that less resources that we can guarantee towards our other bases in, for example, Ukraine and Taiwan,” Kerr said.

Chelsea Bediako, a political science & international and global studies major,  attended the panel to learn more about the conflict outside of what she was seeing in the news media.

“I am the type of person who information comforts me, for example, having a grasp on what’s going on and having less uncertainty makes me more comfortable, so I wanted to separate fact from speculation,” Bediako said.

Geoffrey Claussen, professor of religious studies and the Lori and Eric Sklut professor in Jewish studies, spoke to the religious context of the war. He explained that although it is difficult to justify any war due to the human consequences, some ethicists use the criteria of the Just War Theory. This theory argues that for a war to be considered “just,” it must be a last resort (following unsuccessful non-violent solutions), have a “just” cause, must be produced from a valid authority, have a probable success, use only necessary force and must be fought fairly with minimal harm to non-combatants.

Claussen explained that the vast majority of the Israeli community supports this war, as they see Iran as an existential threat. In the U.S., Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Jason Husser noted that the American people are opposed, with recent polling showing 56% being against the war. Husser explained that these numbers can and will fluctuate as the conflict progresses, with the majority of Americans in the polls being against boots on the ground.

Ariela Marcus-Sells, associate professor of religious studies, covered the political and religious motives behind this conflict, including the unique societal view that Islam and, therefore, Iran is a threat to Western society. Marcus-Sells argued this is not a new concept, describing how in the 18th century, the idea of orientalism came from Western leaders of Europe seeing themselves as descendants of “greater society,” in comparison to the East, including people who followed Islam. This belief only grew over the years with the creation of America, the misconception of terrorists being associated with Muslims and media coverage of Islamic religious conservatism as “something strange and oppressive.”

Students were also able to ask questions of the panel. Mariama Jalloh, a public health major, came to the panel to listen to Elon’s faculty members’ opinions about the conflict and hear an academic perspective that was new to her

“I really appreciated Dr. Marcus-Sells and Dr. Kesgin explaining the landscape of the situation, both religiously and politically,” Jalloh said. “This panel gave students a platform to ask deeper questions that you wouldn’t hear on social media or the internet.”

Participating faculty will be Ariela Marcus-Sells, Baris Kesgin, Geoffrey Claussen, Jason Husser, and Tom Kerr, with Jason Kirk moderating.

Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to attend.

This year’s conference centered around the theme of “Shifting Identities and Fractured Communities.” Student paper topics ranged from the theocratic turn in US anti-abortion politics to a sentiment analysis of religious texts. Their international research took them to the south of Spain; their rigorous methods included ethnographic interviews and visual analysis of the Billy Graham Library; and their conclusions contributed to important conversations about Judeo-Christian nationalism in US higher education and the ramifications of abortion abolitionist legislation.

The American Academy of Religion is the largest scholarly organization in the world dedicated to the professional study of religion. Roughly three hundred scholars working at colleges and universities in this region regularly participate in the annual meeting. The regional meeting also offers limited spots for undergraduate students to present their academic research and engage with professional scholars from across the region.

Four sessions were held to showcase undergraduate research, and Elon students garnered five of the 16 highly competitive undergraduate slots. One of the five students was also an Elon College Fellow and a member of Elon’s Multifaith Scholars program, led by Director Amy Allocco. Two students were presenting research for the Honors and Lumen programs, and two students took the initiative to craft their own credit-bearing undergraduate research project for ELR. All five students were closely mentored in their discipline by an Elon faculty member who helped to guide their research and prepare their presentations over the course of their junior and senior years. The papers will also be delivered before Elon audiences at the Spring Undergraduate Research Forum, Tuesday, April 28, 2026.

Support for travel was provided by the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, the Department of Religious Studies and the Office of Undergraduate Research. The funding also supported a small student group of conference observers as well as group co-organizer Amy Allocco, professor and distinguished scholar of religious studies.

Undergraduate Research Presentations

Alyssa Carney (MFS, ECF), “Echoes of Al-Andalus: Islamophobia and Migration in Spain” (Sandy Marshall, mentor)

Mallory Fahrlender, “Abortion Abolition Extremism: The Theocratic Turn in US Anti-Abortion Politics (Toddie Peters, mentor)

Kelsey Golden, “New Crusaders, Old Problems: Crusade as Cognitive Domain in the Billy Graham Library” (Lynn Huber and Evan Gatti, mentors)

Bunny Ingram, “Faith and Feeling: A Sentiment Analysis of Religious Texts” (Heather Barker, mentor)

Ben Kaplan, “Judeo-Christian Nationalism and Jewish Ethics in American Political Myth” (Andrew Monteith, mentor)

Elon Faculty Presentations

Andrew Monteith, “‘Hatred Is the Right Response to Evil’: Judeo-Christian Nationalism, The Heritage Foundation, and Donald Trump’s War Against Higher Education”

Amy L. Allocco, professor of religious studies and director of the Multifaith Scholars program at 51±ŹÁÏÍű, has published a new article in the International Journal of Hindu Studies examining how ritual practices in Tamil-speaking South India engage with alcohol abuse and suicide and serve as a site for a gendered ethic of refusal. The article, “ appeared in a recent special issue focused on Hindu narratives and practices in the contemporary world, guest edited by Tracy Pintchman (Loyola University Chicago).

Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Tamil Nadu, Allocco analyzes Hindu rituals that invite deceased women to return as protective family deities called pĆ«vāáč­aikkāris. Although these rituals were traditionally reserved for auspicious wives who died “good” deaths, in recent years, women who died via suicide have also featured in these rites, particularly in response to their husbands’ alcohol abuse. Through close attention to ritual dialogue and performance, the article shows how these ceremonies create space for confronting gendered suffering and social injustice, particularly the effects of male alcoholism on women’s lives. Allocco argues that these ritual encounters allow both living and deceased women to voice grievances, demand accountability, and articulate forms of ethical protest. In doing so, the rituals illuminate broader social realities in contemporary India, where suicide rates have risen sharply and debates over alcohol policy remain politically charged.