Randall Styers

Randall Styers is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Duke University (1997), an M.A.R. from Yale Divinity School (1984), a J.D. from Yale Law School (1984), and an A.B. from Duke University (1980). His research focuses on religion, modernity, and cultural history, particularly exploring intersections between religion, law, gender, and science.

• Professional roles: Treasurer and Board Member of the American Academy of Religion; Board Member of the University of North Carolina Press; Former Chair of the Council on Graduate Studies in Religion.

His major works include Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World (2004), co-edited volumes like Magic in the Modern World (2017), and articles critiquing modern conceptions of religion and magic. Styers has been honored with the UNC Distinguished Teaching Award (2012) and the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professorship (2008–2012).

His teaching spans courses on religious freedom, gender and sexuality in Western Christianity, religion and science, and critical theory. Styers actively contributes to interdisciplinary debates on religion's role in modern society and the epistemological challenges of studying magic and supernaturalism.