Religion, Richard Ascough

Dr. Richard Ascough has been appointed Director of the Queen’s School of Religion for the period July 1, 2012 – June 30, 2017.

Richard Ascough is an Associate Professor at the School of Religion, where he has taught since 1999. He received his Ph.D. from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto (1997) and taught at Loyola University Chicago for two years prior to coming to Queen’s.
 
His teaching and research specialty is the history of early Christianity and Greco-Roman religious culture, on which he has published eight books and more than thirty articles. He has a keen interest in understanding the many small, unofficial associations in antiquity, known primarily through inscriptions and papyri documents. He and two colleagues in Toronto are publishing critical editions of these texts, the first volume of which came out in 2011. They are also about to publish a sourcebook for facilitating work on associations. It includes new English translations of more than three hundred Greek and Latin inscriptions and papyri documents, along with descriptions of association buildings, translations from literary documents, and an extensive annotated bibliography. A companion website for the book can be found at http://philipharland.com/greco-roman-associations/.
 
Dr. Ascough has published six articles on teaching and learning and offers workshops and consultations through Queen’s Center for Teaching and Learning and at many other institutions of higher education across North America. He has been recognized for his innovative teaching in a number of ways, including both of the university wide teaching awards at Queen’s: the Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching (2002) and The Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Teaching Award (2009). To read a profile of Dr. Ascough’s teaching style see http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/profiles/richard-ascough.