Ashley M. Purpura
Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Purdue University
Ashley M. Purpura
Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Purdue University
Ashley Purpura is a scholar of Orthodox Christianity and an associate professor of religious studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University. Her work focuses on bringing contemporary and historical religious perspectives into dialogue to provide new understandings of and approaches to faith traditions in the present.
Her scholarship primarily focuses on theology, gender, and religion in historically Byzantine Christian sources and modern Orthodox Christianity. Her current projects critically analyze women's religious representations and contributions, and evaluate religious conceptions of power, freedom, and difference.
Purpura serves as the co-chair of the Eastern Orthodox Studies Unit of the American Academy of Religion, serves on the international expert committee of the “New Directions in Orthodox Christian Thought” project sponsored by the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief, and is the co-editor of the "Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought" book series at Fordham University Press. For 2024-2029, she has been appointed as a McDonald Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.