Richard Newton, PhD is Associate Professor and Undergraduate Director of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama and founding curator of Sowing the Seed, a social media professional development network for students of religion.
Education
Newton took his doctorate in Religious Studies in 2014 from Claremont Graduate University, specializing in Critical Comparative Scriptures. He also has a bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies and Anthropology from Texas Christian University and an MDiv from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Along with formal coursework, he trained at the Maya Reseach Program’s ethnographic field school in Yaxunah, Mexico, the Bethsaida Excavation Project in Israel-Palestine, and the Institute for Signifying Scriptures.
Research
Newton is the author of Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures (Equinox 2020) and co-editor of Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion (Bloomsbury 2023) with Vaia Touna. In addition to being Editor of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion, he is widely-published on theory and method in the study of religion, scriptures and identity politics, and pedagogy. His research has been featured in top-flight journals including the Journal of Biblical Literature, Method &Theory in the Study of Religion, Religion & Theology. An internationally sought-after lecturer, Newton was named a recipient of the President’s Faculty Research Award at the University of Alabama in 2021.
Teaching
Richard Newton is a passionate educator. Having facilitated workshops on teaching for the Wabash Center for Teaching & Learning in Religion, the North American Association for the Study of Religion, and the American Academy of Religion, he is regularly invited to help faculty sharpen their pedagogical skills and equip instructors to enliven their classrooms. In 2023, Newton was named a Distinguished Teaching Fellow with Technology in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Alabama.
Service and the Public Square
Throughout his career, Newton has dedicated himself to shaping fruitful conversations on religion culture and teaching. In 2006, he begain Sowing the Seed as an organic exchange between curious people, centered around his research in biblical studies. In 2009, he expanded his reflections to explore issues pertaining to religion, race, and culture. Between 2015 and 2019, the site regularly hosted a regular blog roundtable featuring the insights of an interdisciplinary group of undergraduates, graduate students, and working scholars from across 11 institutions. Newton has since shared his insights in various media and live events with Sowing the Seed serving as a digital anchor. He also regularly creates multimedia teaching resources for he, colleauges, and readers to use in their own learning.
Sowing the Seed 