September 20, 2004
Gary Lease named interim dean of humanities
By Scott Rappaport
Acting Chancellor Martin M. Chemers has appointed Professor Gary Lease as
interim dean of the UCSC Humanities Division.
Gary Lease
Photo
by Don Fukuda
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An internationally recognized expert across a remarkable range
of fieldsincluding early Christian archaeology, Vatican
foreign policy and canon law, German intellectual history, German
Judaism, and religious/cultural evolutionLease previously
served as dean of the Humanities Division at UCSC from 1990
to 1995.
Lease joined the faculty at UCSC in 1973 and has served as chair of the History
of Consciousness Department since 1998. His other major administrative posts
have included: chair of the Religious Studies Department, chair of the Environmental
Studies Department, Faculty Associate Chancellor, Director of the Education
Abroad Program in Goettingen, West Germany, and several assignments as Acting
Provost of Kresge College.
Born in Hollywood, the son of an actor, Lease received his
bachelors degree in philosophy from Loyola University
in Los Angeles, and a doctorate degree in theology from the
University of Munich in 1968. His ongoing work is concentrated
in the history of religious thought in 19th- and 20th-century
Germany, German Judaism, ancient Mediterranean religious history,
the relationship between politics and religion, and theories
of religion.
Since 1995 Lease has served as the executive secretary of the
North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR),
and since 1998, as treasurer of the International Association
for the History of Religions (IAHR). In 2001, he was a guest
professor at the University of Munich, occupying the renowned
Romano Guardini Chair for Theory of Culture and Religion.
Leases appointment will extend through the search for a permanent dean,
which will commence immediately.
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