School of Humanities and Sciences
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Lerone A. Martin
Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor, Professor of Religious Studies and of African and African American Studies
BioLerone A. Martin is the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor in Religious Studies, African & African American Studies, and The Nina C. Crocker Faculty Scholar. He also serves as the Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute and Senior Editor of the Institute's Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project.
Martin is an award-winning author. His latest book, "Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King, Jr." chronicles the overlooked adolescence and calling of Martin Luther King, Jr. It will be published by HarperCollins in May 2026.
Martin is also the author of "The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism." The book, published in February 2023 by Princeton University Press, has garnered praise from numerous publications including: The Nation, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, Religion News Service, Publisher’s Weekly, and History Today.
In 2014 he published, "Preaching on Wax: The Phonograph and the Making of Modern African American Religion." The book received the 2015 first book award by the American Society of Church History, an affiliated organization of the American History Association (AHA).
In support of his research, Martin has received a number of nationally recognized fellowships, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, The American Council of Learned Societies, The Institute for Citizens and Scholars (formerly The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation), The Teagle Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, the Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion, and the Forum for Theological Exploration.
Most recently, Martin became Co-Director of $1 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to fund “The Crossroads Project,” a four-year, multi-institution project to advance public understanding of the history, politics, and cultures of African American religions.
He has also been recognized for his teaching, receiving institutional teaching awards as well as fellowships from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion.
His commentary and writing have been featured on The NBC Today Show, The History Channel, PBS, CSPAN, CNN, and NPR, as well as in Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He also served as an advisor on the critically acclaimed PBS documentary series The History of Gospel Music & Preaching.
Lerone is currently working on a graphic novel version of "Young King," also to be published by HarperCollins. -
Michaela Mross
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
BioMichaela Mross specializes in Japanese Buddhism, with a particular emphasis on Sōtō Zen, Buddhist rituals, sacred music, as well as manuscript and print culture in premodern Japan. She has written numerous articles on kōshiki 講式 (Buddhist ceremonials) and co-edited a special issue of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies on kōshiki. Her first book, Memory, Music, Manuscripts: The Ritual Dynamics of Kōshiki in Japanese Sōtō Zen, is forthcoming with the Kuroda Series of University of Hawai’i Press. She is currently working on a monograph on eisanka 詠讃歌 (Buddhist hymns) and lay Buddhist choirs in contemporary Zen Buddhism. This project will showcase how music played a vital role in the modernization of Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhism in the last seventy years.
