The Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies
The Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies (JPC) is an academic center in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota dedicated to the multi- and interdisciplinary study of interreligious relations and understanding. The center collaborates with the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, to promote the public understanding of interreligious relations through dialogue, encounter, and civic engagement. The JPC advances the field of Interreligious Studies as an academic discipline, especially by connecting scholarship with public engagement and practice.
A word from the director
“The Jay Phillips Center supports Interreligious Studies, one of the most important emerging fields in higher education today. Religious diversity shapes our communities, our campuses, our conflicts, and our possibilities. Many emerging scholars in this field feel isolated, under-resourced, and uncertain about their professional futures. This program is designed to help with that, not just for these scholars, but for the field itself. By investing deeply in early-career scholars through sustained mentorship, peer community, and national visibility, we hope to help build the infrastructure IRS needs to thrive as an academic discipline.”
Dr. Hans Gustafson, Director, Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies
Program leadership
This program is led by Dr. Hans Gustafson, Director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies and a scholar in the field. Dr. Gustafson is actively involved in all components of the fellowship, including cohort selection, seminars, mentoring conversations, professional development sessions, and the annual AIIS/AAR gathering. Fellows work closely with Dr. Gustafson throughout the fellowship year, engaging with him in regular conversations on scholarly development, public engagement, and preparation for the annual AIIS/AAR gathering, alongside dedicated mentorship from the Senior Scholars-in-Residence.
Hans Gustafson, Ph.D.
Director, Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies | Senior Adjunct Faculty, Department of Theology | College of Arts & Sciences
Dr. Hans Gustafson is Director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies at the University of St. Thomas (MN) and Senior Adjunct Faculty in Theology. In addition to directing the Center, he leads the university’s Interfaith Fellows Program and its Holocaust & Genocide Studies minor, convenes the Higher Education Group for the Minnesota Multifaith Network, and directs the Norway J-Term program, From Frozen Lakes to Frosty Fjords: Dialogue, Diversity, and Leadership in Minnesota & Norway. He is also the Past President of the Association for Interreligious / Interfaith Studies (AIIS) and is co-chair of the Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Unit of the American Academy of Religion.
Gustafson is the author of Everyday Wisdom: Interreligious Studies in a Pluralistic World (Fortress, 2023) and Everyday Encounters: Humanizing Dialogue in Theory and Practice (Fortress, 2025), and editor of Interreligious Studies: Dispatches from an Emerging Field (Baylor University Press, 2020). His scholarship explores interreligious encounter, lived religion, religious identity, civic religious pluralism, and mapping the field. He has published widely in journals such as the Journal of Interreligious Studies, Teaching Theology & Religion, Interreligious Studies and Intercultural Theology, and the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. His public-facing scholarship includes a civic learning module co-authored with Elinor Pierce of Harvard University's Pluralism Project for PBS’s Under-Told Stories Project.
As an instructor, Gustafson offers undergraduate and graduate courses including Interreligious Encounter, Lived Religion, Dialogue and Disagreement in Religiously Diverse Secular Societies, Religion in Public and Professional Life, and others. His pedagogy integrates experiential learning, structured dialogue, civic engagement, and personal narrative, with a focus on cultivating interreligious phronesis, the practical wisdom required to engage religious diversity with skill and integrity.
Across his teaching, scholarship, and leadership, Gustafson is committed to cultivating healthy communities of disagreement, strengthening civic religious pluralism, and equipping emerging scholars and practitioners to navigate and lead within religiously diverse societies.
- Education
- Ph.D., Religion
- M.A., Philosophy
- M.A., Theology
- B.A., Philosophy & Theology
- Expertise
- Interreligious Studies; Study of Religion; Theology; Religious Identity; Lived Interreligious Relations; Dialogue Methods; Approaches to Religious Diversity; Interreligious Leadership; Civic Religious Pluralism
Partners
The program is offered in collaboration with the Association for Interreligious/Interfaith Studies (AIIS). Manuscript mentorship is offered with the Journal of Interreligious Studies.
Contact
- Program
- jpc@stthomas.edu
- Director
- Dr. Hans Gustafson, hsgustafson@stthomas.edu
- Web
- stthomas.edu/jpc