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Christopher Ocker Ph.D.

Professor
Theology

About Dr. Ocker

I teach Global Christianity, and my research focuses on the cultural transformations that gripped Medieval and Reformation Europe. I have served as Associate Director of the GTU’s Center for Hermeneutical Studies, Co-Director of its Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, Chair of its Department for Cultural and Historical Studies, and Interim Dean and Assistant Provost of the Graduate School of Theology at Redlands. I enjoy affiliations with the the Medieval Studies Program and the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion at the University of California. I've been a fellow of the Institute for European History in Mainz, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow of the Max Planck Institute for History in Göttingen and the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Constance, and most recently a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Comparative History of Monasticism at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany. And during a recent leave of absence from the University of Redlands, I served as the inaugural director of the Program for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne Australia.

Education

  • MDiv, Fuller Theological Seminary
  • ThM, PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary

Professional Background

  • Professor, San Francisco Theological Seminary (July 2001-present, on leave 2019-2021), Interim Dean (July 2021-June 2023), Associate Professor (July 1995-June 2001; tenured February 1997), Assistant Professor of History (July 1991-June 1995).

  • Professor, Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry (IRCI), Australian Catholic University, Melbourne (July 2019-November 2023, on leave 2021-2022, ¼ appointment 2022-2023; Inaugural Director, July 2019-June 2021).
  • Member of the Core Doctoral Faculty, The Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley (May 1992-present).
  • Assistant Provost and Interim Dean, San Francisco Theological Seminary / Graduate School of the Theology, University of Redlands, San Anselmo and Redlands, California (July 2021-30 June 2023).
  • Editor, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions. Leiden: E.J. Brill, July 2020-present; member of the editorial board 2009-2020.
  • Co-Editor, with Christoph Markschiess (Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Berlin) and Christian Albrecht (University of Munich), Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte. Berlin: DeGruyter, January 2020-present.
  • Affiliated Faculty, University of California at Berkeley, Department of History (June 2001-2019), with additional affiliations with the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion and the Program in Medieval Studies (-present).
  • Chair, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion, the Graduate Theological Union, 2015-2019. Convener, Area 2 Historical Studies (unit before reorganization as department), Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, July 2007-June 2008; September 1996-June 1998.
  • Coordinator, the Muilenburg-Koenig History of Religion Seminar, 2011-2019.
  • Co-Director with Susanna Elm of the University of California’s History Department, Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, (October 1999-2009).
  • Associate Director, Center for Hermeneutical Studies (October 1991-December 1996).
  • Visiting Professor, Ignaz Bubis Summer School, Hochschule für Jüdische Studien, Heidelberg, August 2011.
  • Iona Pacific Visiting Scholar, Vancouver School of Theology, July 2010.
  • Visiting Professor of History, Religious Studies, University of California at Berkeley, Spring 2012, Spring 2005, Fall 2002, Spring 2002, Spring 2001.

Publications

The Hybrid Reformation: A Social, Cultural, and Intellectual History of Contending Forces. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

 

Edited, with Susanna Elm, Material Christianity: Western Religion and the Agency of Things. Amsterdam: Springer, 2020.

 

Luther, Conflict, and Christendom: Reformation Europe and Christianity in the West. Cambridge University Press, 2018. Paperback 2020.

 

Church-Robbers and Reformers in Germany, 1525-1547: Confiscation and Religious Purpose in the Holy Roman Empire. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006.

 

Biblical Poetics before Humanism and Reformation. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

 

Awards and service

  • Honorable mention, Roland H. Bainton Prize in History and Theology, sixteenth Century Studies Conference and Society, 2023 (for The Hybrid Reformation).
  • Fellowship, Technical University Dresden, February-July 2021.
  • Natalie Zemon Davis Prize for best article in Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Reforme for 2017.
  • Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, 2014 (6 November 2014. Lecture: “Reformations that Matter and Some that Don’t”).
  • Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Fellowship (June-August 2009). Sponsor: Prof. Dr. Rudolf Schlögl, Professor of History, University of Constance, Germany.
  • Honorable mention, first competition for the Gerald Strauss Prize for best book in German history, Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, 2007 (for Church Robbers and Reformers in Germany, 1525-1547).
  • American Philosophical Society, Sabbatical Fellowship in Social History(2003)
  • Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Fellowship in History (January-August 1995). Sponsor: Prof. Dr. Otto-Gerhard Oexle, Director, Max Planck Institute for History, Göt¬tingen, Germany.
  • Theological Scholarship and Research Award, Association of Theological Schools (1995). Younger Scholars Award. Mentor: Prof. Thomas A. Brady, Professor of History, University of California at Berkeley.
     
     
  • Institut für Europäische Geschichte, division for the History of Religion, Fellowship (Fall 1988 through May 1991).
     
     
  • Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Research Award (Fall 1987). Julius-Maximillian Universität, Würzburg, Federal Republic of Germany.