Wendy Felese
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Wendy Felese’s work focuses on American Indian spiritual and cultural memory, ceremony, and tradition, and features a land-based ethic that allows her students to explore the importance of place in the Indigenous worldview. These explorations often illuminate social issues that arise when conflicting interests manifest on land (specifically sites that have ceremonial and spiritual importance for Native communities). Her research and writing also includes how Irish land-based cultural traditions and nationalism in Northern Ireland overlap with contemporary Indigenous thought and activism. Felese also has a broad background in comparative religion and cultural theory.
Recent Courses Taught
Native American Spiritualities
Memory, Tradition, and Contemporary Native American Issues
Select Publications
- Reorientation in the Field: Why Religion Matters. Felese, W. Journal of Culture and Religious Theory. Issue 20.3 Fall 2021
- Left And Right Is Really Up And Down. The New Polis: Critical Theory, Cultural Analysis, Political Philosophy And Theology. February 13, 2019.
- Religion is Rooted in the Land. Journal of Religion, Identity and Politics. Dec. 2011
- Labels Without Scars: Mystifying Amnesia in today’s Presidential Politics. Journal of Cultural and Religious Thought. January 29, 2009
Professional Affiliations
American Academy of Religion
American Conference for Irish Studies
American Studies Association
Athens Institute for Education and Research
Appointed to the Faculty
2022Educational Background
Ph.D., University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology
M.A., Iliff School of Theology
B.A., Regis University
