Dr. Natalia Marandiuc Appointed as Assistant Professor of Christian Theology

Dr. Natalia Marandiuc has been named assistant professor of Christian Theology at Perkins School of Theology, effective July 1, 2013. A native of Romania, Dr. Marandiuc earned the Ph.D. in Religious Studies and Theology from Yale University in 2013.  In addition, she earned the M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in 2009, the M.A. degree in Religion in 2004—all from Yale—and a B.S. degree in Economics from Barry University in 1997.

Dr. Natalia Marandiuc

Dr. Marandiuc will teach Christian theology courses in the various degree programs at Perkins School of Theology, in addition to teaching in the M.A. and Ph.D. curricula of the Graduate Program in Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman College.

“Natalia Marandiuc is an outstanding scholar who is deeply committed to Perkins’ mission of preparing women and men for faithful leadership in the church,” said William B. Lawrence, the dean of Perkins School of Theology. “Among the more than 150 applicants whom we considered for this position, Dr. Marandiuc proved to be an exceptional addition to our faculty.”

She was recently awarded a Louisville Fellowship from the Louisville Institute’s “Vocation of the Theological Educator” initiative.  A program of the Lilly Endowment, the postdoctoral mentorship fellowship spans academic years 2013-15. Part of the program will involve mentoring by two senior faculty members at Perkins School of Theology.

In reflecting on the addition of Dr. Marandiuc to the faculty at Perkins School of Theology and Southern Methodist University, Dean Lawrence added, “I look forward to introducing her to our students, alumni, and friends.”

Dr. Marandiuc’s research interests include systematic and constructive theology, feminist theology and theory, theological anthropology and pneumatology, theologies of reconciliation and their relation to global church communities, faith and globalization and human migration.  Her Ph.D. dissertation at Yale was titled “The Goodness of Home:  Love Attachments, Trinitarian Pneumatology, and the Making of the Self.”

Her publications include “Human Will, Divine Grace, and Virtue—Jonathan Edwards Tangoes with Immanuel Kant,” in Jonathan Edwards and Scotland, Kenneth P. Minkema & Adriaan C. Neele, editors; “Monasticism,” and “Unitarians,” in Encyclopedia of Global Religion, Wade Clark Roof & Mark Jurgensmeyer, editors; “Kant’s View of the Church: An Intellectual Missionary, Yet an Impoverished Ecclesiology,” in Archaeus X (2006); and “Studies on the Use of Information in Economics,” in Journal of the National Institute for Information and Documentation, 2 (1993).

A lecturer in systematic theology at Yale Divinity School during the 2012-2013 academic year, Dr. Marandiuc was a teaching fellow at Yale from 2006-2012.  In addition, she has presented papers to conferences including the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting (2012, 2009), the Jonathan Edwards and Scotland Conference (2009), the Sixth European Association for the Study of Religions Conference and Special Conference of the International Association for the History of Religions in Bucharest, Romania (2006).

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