Stephen Shoemaker

Stephen Shoemaker is Professor and Department Head of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon within the College of Arts and Sciences. A specialist in the history of Christianity and the beginnings of Islam, his academic focus centers on early Byzantine and Near Eastern Christianity, with particular emphasis on early devotion to the Virgin Mary, Christian apocryphal literature, and the relations between Near Eastern Christianity and formative Islam.

His scholarly profile includes expertise across multiple ancient languages including Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Georgian, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Hebrew, which enables him to work directly with primary sources across religious traditions. His research program integrates historical-critical analysis with attention to the material dimensions of religious texts and practices.

Shoemaker's publications reveal a scholarly trajectory from early work on Marian traditions to broader investigations of Islamic origins and apocalyptic literature in late antiquity. His research demonstrates consistent engagement with the complex interplay between religious traditions in the Near East during the transition from late antiquity to the early medieval period.

His scholarly contributions have been recognized through prestigious awards:

• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship
• Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship
• American Council of Learned Societies fellowship
• National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship
• Institute for Advanced Study fellowship
• National Humanities Center fellowship
• Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University fellowship
• Rockefeller Foundation fellowship
• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinde fellowship

As an educator, Shoemaker teaches courses on medieval humanities, the history of Eastern Christianity, Islamic origins, and apocalypticism. He has secured over $1,000,000 in research funding throughout his career and serves as Editor of the Journal of Early Christian Studies, contributing significantly to scholarly discourse in his field.