*Indicates a student co-author.
Chung-Kim, Esther. “Cost of Practicing Religion.” On Earth as in Heaven? Liturgy, Materiality, and Economics, edited by Melanie C. Ross. Liturgical Press, 2025, pp. 241-264.
Abstract: The article addresses the economic and material factors involved in the shaping of religious practices during the Reformation. It first provides background on poor relief efforts and the Protestant Reformers’ justifications for transfer of church materials toward charity, using the case studies of Johannes Bugenhagen’s reallocation policies in northern Germany, Ulrich Zwingli and the removal of images, decorations, and altars in Zurich’s churches, and John Calvin’s establishment of funds for poor refugees in Geneva. The article then argues that liturgical practices and materiality served to demarcate communities, creating significant costs to practicing religion for excluded groups. Major instances of such demarcation include the exclusion of Huguenots from Catholic cemeteries, Reformed refugees’ denied requests for their own church buildings, and Huguenots’ attempts to legitimize their religious identity through the construction of pew benches. Reformed communities that were refused church buildings were often forced to partake in the practice of Auslauf, or departing from their home cities every Sunday in order to find a space to worship as limitations on the public practice of Reformed faith increased. Other costs of practicing religion for minority groups included exclusion from institutions of education, regulation of refugees’ economic activity, and inability to benefit from some common chests. Finally, as worship shifted from Eucharist-centered to sermon-centered practices, the design and construction of physical church spaces reflected the changes in theological values and religious demarcation.
Chung-Kim, Esther. “Faith in Medicine: Christianity’s Legacy of Medical Charity.” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, vol. 94, issue 1, March 2025, pp. 61-70.
Abstract: During the Reformation, the convergence of physicians and religious leaders addressing the plague and promoting social change “found a common cause in omitting saints from healing traditions and strengthening religious arguments for the use of natural medicine.” Many medical texts simultaneously propagated religious views, whether Catholic, Protestant, or general Christian morals that would be acceptable for both. The combination of the Renaissance, Reformation, and vernacular print encouraged the German reform of plague advice by the mid-sixteenth century, flourishing in print and sales and connecting academic medicine with the local environmental and cultural context of German lands. Physicians and healers had various motivations to publish their medical knowledge in the vernacular, but one common reason to popularize their knowledge was charity, partly as a Christian ethic and partly as a helping profession.
Chung-Kim, Esther. “Poverty and the Poor.” Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, vol. 24, edited by Constance M. Furey, et al. DeGruyter, 2025.
Abstract: Many Protestants no longer saw beggars as holy conduits, but rather a social nuisance especially as their numbers swelled. Protestant theology had significantly reduced the role that human action would play in the channeling of divine grace from heaven to earth. Protestants believed that the sacrifice of Christ secured one’s salvation and that good works did not contribute to this channeling of divine grace. Instead, Protestants emphasized good works as the fruitful outcome or thankful response to the grace already received. Consequently, biblical interpretation and theological views affected church practices in the early modern social context.
Chung-Kim, Esther. “Roundtable on Carlos Eire, They Flew: A History of the Impossible.” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, vol. 94, issue 1, March 2025, pp. 113-130.
Abstract: Carlos Eire uses his signature style in his book to explain mystical experiences that elicit responses from awe to disbelief. Despite the challenges of tackling such a topic, it is quite refreshing to read a historical work that stretches our imagination and provides a palpable sense of early modern religious sensibilities. Just as not every Protestant agreed with Luther, not every Catholic would agree with Francesco Guazzo, a Catholic arguing against skeptics on the flight of witches, as his criticism was aimed at some fellow Catholics, as much as at Protestants.
Chung-Kim, Esther, “Charitable Medicine: Access to Health Care in Early Modern Europe,” Circulating Now, Blog for National Library of Medicine, NIH, August 7, 2025.
Abstract: In early modern Europe, physicians studied the natural world, especially herbs and plants for medicinal qualities to treat diseases or maintain health. To gain knowledge of the efficacy of herbs and plants, they relied on ancient and medieval medical texts that recounted the healing effects of herbs, testimonies of past practitioners, or their own experiences of trial and error. What is less known is that one of the motivations for the study of the natural world was the belief that God had included the means for healing in a divinely created world. Belief in the supernatural spurred the deeper discovery of the natural world. Hence some physicians in sixteenth-century Europe turned to an unexpected source in their study of medicine, namely the Bible.
Scheitle, Chris. P., Brenton Kalinowski, Jauhara Ferguson, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. “Polarization in Support for Anti-Muslim Policies in the United States from 2002 to 2019: The Shift from External Shock to Internal Division.” Sociology of Islam, vol. 11, issues 2-3, April 2025, pp. 124-153.
Abstract: Muslim Americans have faced periods of heightened hostility, particularly in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and, more recently, during the presidency of Donald Trump. Yet, dynamics driving this hostility and the ways individuals might draw boundaries across different time periods is not well understood. We begin to address these data gaps using measures of U.S. adults’ support for anti-Muslim policies appearing in separate surveys in 2002 and 2019. The analysis finds that support for anti-Muslim policies follows more distinct social patterns in 2019 than in 2002 and that overall support for anti-Muslim policies has decreased over time but become more polarized in 2019 when compared to 2002. Results have implications for understanding the impact of different conditions on how intergroup hostility and polarization occur.
Gilbert, Gary. Review of Judea Under Greek and Roman Rule, by David A. deSilva. Bryn Mawr Classical Review, June 15, 2025.
Martinez, Chloe. “Giant Heart.” Poem. Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, edited by Marjorie Maddox and Jerry Wemple. Penn State University Press, 2025.
Martinez, Chloe. “The Ruins” and “Ohio.” Poems. Revel, issue 3, Spring 2025.
Martinez, Chloe. “The Whaling Museum,” “Some Wednesdays There's Kinder Art Class on Zoom and That's Where You'll Find Me, I Mean My Child,” and “What No One Tells You.” Poems. Cave Wall, issue 18, Fall 2024/Spring 2025.
Martinez, Chloe, translator. “Mira with Sarcasm,” “Mira’s Over it,” “Mira Should Have Known Better,” and “On Translating Mira (Again!).” POETRY, November 2025.
Abstract: Three translations of Mirabai from the Braj Bhasha, and translator’s note.
Martinez, Chloe, translator. “Mira in the Monsoon Season,” and “Things Work out for Mira.” American Poetry Review, September/October 2025.
Abstract: Two translations of Mirabai from the Braj Bhasha.
Martinez, Chloe, translator. “Mira’s Playing Games,” and “Mira Tries Everything.” Harvard Review Online, June 2025.
Abstract: Two translations of Mirabai from the Braj Bhasha.
Martinez, Chloe, translator. “Mira Applies for a Job.” Peripheries: A Journal of Word, Image, and Sound, vol. 7, 2025.
Abstract: Translation of Mirabai from the Braj Bhasha.
Martinez, Chloe, translator. “Mira Goes out Walking.” Ploughshares, Spring 2025.
Abstract: Translation of Mirabai from the Braj Bhasha.
Martinez, Chloe. “At an Angle to the World.” Preface to exhibition catalogue for “She Opens the Door: Women Artists and Writers Shape Language and Space.” Claremont Lewis Museum of Art, December 2025.
Martinez, Chloe. “Wings of the Moon: Luna Moths.” Sierra Magazine, Summer 2025.
Martinez, Chloe. “Critic’s Notebook: Oh, Look, a Bird! Neurodivergent people find solace in the natural world – and the planet benefits from it. Sierra Magazine, Spring 2025.
Martinez, Chloe. Review of Mirabai: The Making of a Saint, by Nancy Martin, The Journal of Vaishnava Studies, vol. 33, number 2, Spring 2025, pp. 218-221.
Martinez, Chloe, Writer-in-Residence. “SWWIM Writing Residency.” The Betsy Hotel, Miami, FL, April 9-12, 2025.
Abstract: Writing residency with public reading.
Michon, Daniel, editor and translator, and D. A. Smith, translator. Shadow Puppets, Songs, and Sacred Feasts: Celebrations of the Indo-Portuguese Nuns in the Eighteenth-Century Real Convento de Santa Mónica, Goa, India. A Bilingual Edition. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series. Iter Press, 2025.
Abstract: Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender Award for a Scholarly Edition in Translation Prize, 2026. The two eighteenth-century texts translated here offer a rare glimpse into the creative lives of cloistered nuns in Asia, providing a valuable example of early modern "other voices" in a colonial context.
The Entrada de Bonifrate para Festa dos Reis, a shadow puppet play for the feast of the Kings, and the Cartepaço da Muzica, a songbook for the feast of St. John, showcase the imaginative minds of the nuns at the Indo-Portuguese Real Convento de Santa Mónica, Goa, India. Composed for private convent audiences, these texts blend Portuguese and Spanish baroque elements with local Goan traditions. The uncensored verses celebrate convent life, critique local social norms, and affirm the nuns’ community identity, exhibiting the Mónicas’ musical talents and literary sensibilities.
Michon, Daniel. Review of Empire Religiosity: Convent Habits in Colonial and Postcolonial India, by Tim Allender. Journal of Religious History, vol. 49, number 2, June 2025, pp. 274-275.
Velji, Jamel. “(Re)-making Time, (Re)-making Place: Some Considerations on Early Fatimid Ta’wil and Sacred Space,” Fatimid Cosmopolitanism: History, Material Culture, Politics and Religion, edited by Gregory Bilotto, Farhad Daftary and Shainool Jiwa. I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2025, pp. 91-102.
Abstract: How can an analysis of space help us understand shifting hermeneutical patterns among the early Fatimds? This book chapter shows how anticipated utopian spaces of the Fatimids gave way to more circumscribed narratives when their anticipated apocalyptic revolution could not be fully materialized.