Dr. Karen Seat specializes in U.S. religious history, American evangelicalism, and gender studies. In 2012, Dr. Seat began serving as director of the Religious Studies Program, and in 2015 she was appointed head of the Department of Religious Studies and Classics. In addition, she serves as Director of the School of International Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (SILLC). Her publications include “Providence Has Freed Our Hands”: Women’s Missions and the American Encounter with Japan (Syracuse University Press), on nineteenth-century Protestant women's mission movements and their impact on American ideologies regarding gender, race, Christianity, and civilization.