DIRECTOR

Calvin D Ullrich is Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Theology and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Religion, Community, and Ecologies (CIRRCE). His research interests intersect the fields of continental philosophy of religion, philosophy of embodiment, as well as political and public theologies. Recent volumes include The Unthinkable Body: Challenges of Embodiment in Religion, Politics, and Ethics, edited with Rebekka Klein (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024) and a monograph, Sovereignty and Event: The Political in John D. Caputo’s Radical Theology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021). He is currently completing a monograph provisionally titled, A Phenomenology of Bodily Affect: Sin and Transformation, and is editing two volumes of essays, one on film and theology, and the other on the recent papal encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. Dr. Ullrich is accepting doctoral candidates these above mentioned fields. He is also a National Research Foundation (NRF) Y1-Rated scholar. 

Email: UllrichCD@ufs.ac.za

RESEARCHER

Prof John Klaasen is a Research Fellow at the CIRRCE and serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Free State. He holds postgraduate degrees from The University of the Western Cape, University of Kent in Canterbury and Stellenbosch University. His research interest is Religion, Identity and Development and holds an Adjunct Professorship at VID Specialized University. He is also a principal investigator of a hope and development project and collaborates with colleagues from Vrije Universiteit. He is a C2 - rated scholar

Email: KlaasenJS@ufs.ac.za

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Dr Pascal Pienaar is a church historian working on the formation of Christian identity and vocation within southern African mission contexts. She is a postdoctoral researcher in Church History at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Religion, Community, and Ecologies (CIRRCE) at the University of the Free State, and serves as vicar of St Paulus Lutheran Church, Bloemfontein. She holds a PhD in Ecclesiology from Stellenbosch University. Her research traces how mission history and spirituality interact to shape religious life, with particular attention to women’s experiences and to Christian responses to conflict and social transformation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This work is also informed by Early Christian thought, especially themes of religious confession and communal formation, through a comparative historical lens.

Email: Pienaar.P@ufs.ac.za

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Dr Benson O Anofuechi is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research Center in Religion, Community and Ecologies (CIRRCE) and an associate lecturer at the Department for Historical and Constructive Theology of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Free State (UFS), Bloemfontein campus. He holds a doctorate in Ethics and Theological Studies from the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa. His multidisciplinary research interests include Social Ethics, Religion and Theology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sustainable Development Goals SDGs, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Practical and Eco-theology.

Email: Anofuechi.BO@ufs.ac.za

ADMINISTRATOR

Sinovuyo Mogwasi

Email: MogwasiS@ufs.ac.za