Superhumanists! HSP Faculty Train You for the Tokyo Olympics

Dr. Daisy Vargas (Ph.D. in History, University of California, Riverside; M.A. in Religious Studies, University of Denver) specializes in Catholicism in the Americas; race, ethnicity, and religion in the United States; and Latina/o religion. Her current project, Mexican Religion on Trial: Race, Religion, and the Law in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, traces the history of Mexican religion, race, and the law from the nineteenth century into the contemporary moment, positioning current legal debates about Mexican religion within a larger history of anti-Mexican and anti-Catholic attitudes in the United States. She has served as an ethnographic field research for the Institute for the Study of Immigration and Religion since 2012. In 2017, she was awarded a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Dr. Vargas serves as co-chair of the Latina/o and Latin American Religion section for the American Academy of Religion-Western Region, and as a steering committee member for the Religions in the Latina/o Americas unit for the American Academy of Religion at the national level.

Kristy Slominski (Ph.D. in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara) specializes in the interaction of religion, science, and health in U.S. history; the history of sex education in the United States; and the impact of religion on U.S. public health discourses. Her current book project, Teaching Moral Sex: An American Religious History of Sex Education (under contract with Oxford University Press), examines religious contributions to public sex education from the late nineteenth century to the present, especially around issues of sexually transmitted diseases. Before joining the faculty at the University of Arizona, she taught at the University of Mississippi and Georgia State University and served on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Religion.

Rob Stephan is an archaeologist by training and has taught in the University of Arizona’s Department of Religious Studies and Classics since 2016. Rob’s research interests focus on how the material remains of the past can inform us about the economic performance of pre-modern societies. What cultural factors lead to improvements in economic well-being? How does socio-political development correlate with per capita material wealth? During the course of his studies, Rob has worked on archaeological excavations in Italy, Cyprus, Britain, Armenia, and the American Southwest. His current project uses archaeological survey to look at southern Sicily from prehistory through the medieval period. Rob teaches courses on classical history and civilization, classical mythology, the reception of classics in the modern world, ancient sport and spectacle, and the Greco-Roman economy. In his free time he mentors and tutors students in a variety of subjects.