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Drs. Clarissa Breu, Olivia Bustion, and E. Trey Clark join the Princeton Theological Seminary faculty this fall, bringing expertise in New Testament, Christian theology, and African American preaching traditions.
“We are delighted to welcome these new colleagues to our faculty, and we look forward to the contributions they will make to our community of teachers, learners, mentors, and friends,” said Dr. John R. Bowlin, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs and Robert L. Stuart Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics. “Most of all, we are excited by what they will teach us, and not just by virtue of their world-class scholarship, but also by their example, their commitment to Christian learning that serves the church and to Christian faith that yearns for wisdom.”
Dr. Clarissa BreuAssistant Professor of New Testament
Dr. Clarissa Breu joins the Department of Biblical Studies as Assistant Professor of New Testament. Most recently, Breu served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna, where she explored “Mockery and Torture in the Passion Narratives and Their Ancient Contexts.”
She holds a master’s in Protestant theology, a master’s in comparative literature, and a PhD in New Testament from the University of Vienna. Her research interests in the Gospel of John, the Book of Revelation, gender, authorship theory, corporeality, and reception of the New Testament are greatly influenced by her studies in literary theory and hermeneutics. Breu’s recent work has focused on gender in the apocalypse, analyzing gestures in the New Testament, and how New Testament scholarship can contribute meaningfully to modern conversations in the humanities and social sciences.
Among the two courses she is teaching this fall, Breu will lead a new course about violence in the New Testament.
“There’s this gap between the Old and the New Testament. Everybody says the Old Testament is so violent, and the New Testament is the love gospel, but there are some very violent passages there,” she said. “We will look at them from a more intersectional perspective to see if race, gender, and class are important there. Students will ask themselves, “How do we deal with the problem that there is violence in the Bible?”
Breu is an ordained pastor in the Austrian Lutheran Church and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Biblical Literature. She is currently working on a second book project on mockery in the Passion Narratives and their ancient contexts.
Dr. Olivia BustionAssistant Professor of Systematic and Constructive Theology
Dr. Olivia Bustion joins the Department of Theology as Assistant Professor of Systematic and Constructive Theology. Her experience includes serving as a teaching fellow at the University of Chicago, its Divinity School, and its Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and, most recently, as a chaplain at UCSF Health Hyde Hospital in San Fransico, California.
Her research interests include queer theory, analytic theology and philosophy, and disability studies. This fall, she will be teaching two new courses, “Queer Theological Reflection in Contemporary Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” and “Life Together: Friendship and Social Change.” Bustion earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Mount Holyoke College, a master’s in English literature from the University of Oxford, a PhD in English language and literature from the University of Michigan, and her MDiv and PhD in theology from the University of Chicago.
Bustion has published articles in the International Journal of Systematic Theology and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. She is currently working on two book projects. The first, tentatively titled, Spirit: A Brief Systematic Theology, develops a model of the Spirit from the queerness of human friendship, a new conceptual scheme for interpreting the relationship between divine grace and human agency along noncompetitive lines. The second project, tentatively titled, Queer Theologies, Abolition Geographies, advances the fields of theology, sexuality, and gender in an abolitionist direction by looking at the lived theologies of queer counterpublics.
“One throughline in my work is to reimagine the genre of systematic theology as intrinsically contextual,” Bustion said. “My research starts with contextual particulars — gender, sexuality, disability — to address systematic questions — what is a person, how does the Spirit work?”
Dr. E. Trey ClarkAssistant Professor of Preaching
Dr. E. Trey Clark joins the Department of Practical Theology as Assistant Professor of Preaching. A scholar of homiletics and Christian spirituality and an ordained minister, Clark comes to Princeton Seminary from Fuller Seminary, where he served as an Assistant Professor of Preaching and Spiritual Formation.
Clark earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wheaton College, and his MDiv and PhD from Fuller Seminary. His research spans holistic preacher formation, African American preaching traditions, the work of Howard Thurman, and the history of preaching. Clark’s scholarship is centered on retrieving overlooked figures, practices, and traditions within and beyond the Black church as theological resources for holistic formation, proclamation, and prophetic witness.
Clark hopes that through his Introduction to Preaching course he’ll be teaching this fall, students will recognize the formative aspects of learning how to preach, whether they are called to the pulpit or elsewhere.
“It’s a privilege to be able to journey alongside folks who are preparing for a variety of forms of ministry and folks who are already engaged in different expressions of ministry,” he said. “I hope they walk away with a deeper understanding of how the work of preparing sermons can be formative for their life in whatever ways they might be called to proclaim or bear witness to the life-giving and liberating gospel of Jesus.”
Clark is the author of Black Contemplative Preaching: A Hidden History of Prayer, Proclamation, and Prophetic Witness (Baylor University Press, 2024). He is currently co-editing A Searching Moment: Howard Thurman as Preacher, Liturgist, and Spiritual Guide with Jennifer Ackerman and Luke A. Powery. He also serves on the editorial boards of Spiritus and Homiletic.
