معرفی
Erika Tritle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies within the College of Humanities at Coastal Carolina University. She specializes in the history of Christianity with a particular focus on Christian-Jewish relations in late medieval Spain, especially examining the complex status of conversos (baptized Jews and their descendants).
Dr. Tritle earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Chicago Divinity School and her B.A. from Luther College. Her academic journey has taken her from Minnesota and South Dakota, where she grew up as the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and a public school teacher, to Israel, where she completed a Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Her dissertation, To the Jew First and to the Greek: Alonso de Cartagena and the Problem of Jewish Flesh in Fifteenth-Century Spain, established her expertise in medieval theological debates surrounding Jewish identity and conversion.
Dr. Tritle's research centers on how Christian thinkers in late medieval Spain constructed theological frameworks that determined the religious and civic status of conversos. She has demonstrated that while later historical narratives have emphasized 'purity of blood' as the central category in these debates, contemporary fifteenth-century discussions were more focused on honor, lineage, and theological nobility. Her work reveals how medieval debates about Jewishness and Christian identity laid important groundwork for later racial thinking in Western culture. Recent publications show a growing interest in interfaith dialogue and the contemporary implications of historical religious encounters.
Among her notable achievements is a Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, where she worked with the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters. Her research has been published in prestigious journals such as Church History and Religious Culture, Cadernos de Estudos Sefarditas, and Crusading and Masculinities.
Dr. Tritle teaches courses on Christianity (history, theology, practice, New Testament), world religions, theory and method in the study of religion, and religion in public life. Her teaching reflects her deep commitment to understanding religious traditions both historically and in their contemporary manifestations. Outside her academic work, she has engaged with religious communities through diverse experiences including working as an AmeriCorps Vista Member, substitute teaching across multiple grade levels, managing a Ronald McDonald House, studying nonviolence in the Black Hills, and exploring interfaith friendship in Jerusalem.
