2026 World Religions Newsletter
Message from the Chair
Department Spotlights
Kudos
Alumni Class Notes
Message from the Chair
Greetings to all of our alumni from the George Washington University Department of World Religions and Peace Studies Program!
In this newsletter, you’ll read about a few of the exciting things happening in the department, including the achievements of our community of alumni, faculty and students.
Thank you so much for your support and involvement. Please stay in touch.
Sincerely,
Dr. Irene Oh
Department Chair
Department Spotlights
Ziffren Endowed Lecture with Jimmy Yu
For the 2025 Ziffren Endowed Lecture, Jimmy Yu, Sheng Yen Professor of Chinese Buddhism at Florida State University, presented on the “Chan [Zen] Path to Freedom” before an engaged audience of students, staff, faculty and friends.
Second Annual RELx Talks
At the invitation of the Center for Interfaith and Spiritual Life, majors in the department joined faculty in presenting “mini-lectures,” or RELx Talks, to introduce current research, next projects and intriguing questions in the field to the wider GW community.
Kudos
- Eyal Aviv organized the conference “Agency and Experience Buddhist & Cognitive Perspectives” at Princeton University in 2025. Prof. Aviv was recently interviewed on the national and religious significance of the Walk for Peace event of Buddhist monks that culminated in Washington, D.C.
- Mohammad Faghfoory retired in 2025 after an extraordinary career of service, teaching, research and mentorship in the department. He organized the final farewell event for Professor Seyyed Nasr, “A Remarkable Journey: 70 Years of Service to Scholarship and Teaching,” gathering former students, colleagues and friends of Professor Nasr from around the world to celebrate the occasion.
- Xiaofei Kang received the prestigious Joseph Levenson Book Prize for her book Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942-1953. Professor Kang gave invited lectures at Cornell University (October 2025) and University of Pennsylvania (November 2025), and virtually at Duke University Kunshan Campus (April 2025). She also presented new research at the American Academy of Religion in Boston, in November 2025.
- Seyyed Nasr retired in 2025 after a long and distinguished career at George Washington University. His most recent book, Return to the Eternal Abode: Sufi Dialogues with Seyyed Hossein Nasr (SUNY Press), was released in 2025 with co-author Amira El-Zein.
- Irene Oh presented “The Current State and Present Prospects of Comparative Religious Ethics” at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in Boston.
- Kelly Pemberton is developing new research on Muslim religious authorities and digital technology, as well as on British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed and his anti-Islamophobia activism. Professor Pemberton is also building guidance documentation around generative AI technologies through the Generative AI & Teaching Group at GW.
- Political science and peace studies major Alanna Moskowitz, an aspiring law student, reflected on her influential time studying abroad in London in GW Today.
- Aidan Puchalik, BA ’25, received the 2025 Theta Alpha Kappa Albert Clark Award, 2nd place, and $500 in prize money for his senior thesis essay, which will be published in the Journal of TAK.
Alumni Class Notes
- Xhesika Bardhi, BA ’15, has been at the University of Chicago since 2017, first as a graduate student in Modern Middle Eastern Studies and now as staff. In her role, she prepares undergraduate students for study abroad programs predominantly in the Global South. She lives between Chicago and Philadelphia (her hometown), with her husband and trilingual toddler.
- Sylvia Cassidy, BA '25, is a Legislative Aide for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.
- Sami Celik, BA '26, is a program associate at the Rumi Forum.
- Tierney Piercy, BA '24, is a second year law student at GW Law.
- Aiden Puchalik, BA '25, is an MA student in the GW Museum Studies Program.
- Li Zhi Rieken, BA '25, is an intern at the Holocaust Museum.
- Ojan Salemi, MA '25, is currently in a doctoral program at the Sorbonne.
- Dana Sultan, BA '24, is completing her MTS at Harvard Divinity School.