Princeton Seminary Welcomes Four New Faculty Members

Dr. Ki Joo “KC” Choi, Kyung-Chik Han Chair Professor of Asian American Theology

Dr. Choi previously served as chair of the Department of Religion at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ, and as coordinator for the second-year university core program Christianity and Culture in Dialogue and the newly formed medical humanities minor there. His teaching and research areas encompass Protestant and Catholic (ecumenical) moral theology, theological aesthetics, peace studies, race and identity, and Asian American theology. Dr. Choi is the author of Disciplined by Race: Theological Ethics and the Problem of Asian American Identity, the first sustained account of the racialized contours of Asian American life by a theologian, published in 2019. He currently is finishing a book tentatively titled Aesthetics and Theological Ethics Reexamined: Deliberation, Community, and Discord, which brings to bear an Edwardsean account of the affections on questions of art and moral change. He also was recently appointed co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics.

Dr. Lisa J. Cleath, Assistant Professor of Old Testament

Dr. Cleath previously served as an associate professor of biblical studies at Portland Seminary at George Fox University in Oregon. Dr. Cleath researches topics at the intersection of ancient Near Eastern studies and critical theory, including the politics of textual authority in the ancient Near East, postcolonial framing of Second Temple Jewish identity, historical trauma in biblical literature, and whiteness in North American Biblical Studies. She previously was the Aramaic specialist on the team at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin that is digitizing the Elephantine Papyri. She also co-edited a volume of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel series (Mohr Siebeck), focusing on new approaches to monumentality in the ancient Near East.

Dr. Amelia Kennedy, Assistant Professor of the History of Medieval Christianity

Dr. Kennedy is a religious and cultural historian of medieval Europe whose research focuses on histories of health, medicine, aging, and disability, as well as Christian monasticism. She is currently completing her first book manuscript, a study of old age in European religious communities c. 950-1350. Tentatively titled On the Threshold of Eternity: Old Age in Medieval Monasteries, the book argues that age was a crucial factor not only in creating communal identity, but also in navigating tensions between individual and institutional aspirations. She has published an article on abbatial retirement among the Cistercians in Radical History Review and an article on monastic disability in the Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies. After graduating with a PhD in history from Yale University in 2020, she completed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Yale before joining the faculty at the Karl-Franzens University in Graz, Austria.

The Rev. Dr. Kimberly Wagner, Assistant Professor of Preaching

Dr. Wagner previously served as an assistant professor of homiletics in the Axel Jacob and Gerda Maria (Swanson) Carlson Chair in Homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. She earned her BS in Secondary Life Science Education from Miami University of Ohio, an MDiv from the Candler School of Theology and a PhD from the Graduate Division of Religion, both at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Dr. Wagner’s previous experience on the pastoral staff of a PCUSA congregation in Virginia helps fuel and inform her present scholarship and teaching. She is passionate about supporting students’ formation and helping clergy and communities navigate the realities of an ever-changing world and church. Her current writing and work focus on preaching and ministry in the midst and wake of trauma, particularly thinking about collective trauma, the role of the preacher, and the resources of Scriptures and faith to respond to these moments.