Loren D. Lybarger, Ph.D.

Lybarger is a religious studies specialist focusing on Islam and comparative religions, with more than 20 years of experience in ethnographic field study methods. His research and teaching have focused on how religion, nationalism, war, mass displacement, and state violence shape identities and demands for justice across generations.

He has published two books examining these questions in relation to Palestinian experiences in Palestine and in the United States and is about to publish a third, co-authored work that extends these broad concerns to Argentina.

He is developing a new project focusing on how religion shapes utopian and dystopian responses to climate disaster. His current teaching encompasses topics in Islamic Studies (course in the Islamic tradition; Sufism; and Political Islam) as well as comparative courses such as Theories of Religion; Religion and Violence; and Introduction to the Study of Religion.

He has served in leadership positions in the Ohio University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors and on the board of the Palestinian American Research Center. Prior to receiving his doctorate, Lybarger worked as a teacher and researcher in the Middle East for eight years. He spent six of those years in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip) and the other two in Cairo, Egypt.

He is also the immediate past president of the Ohio University chapter of the American Association of University Professors, an organization that has existed since the 1920s and which has dedicated itself to the defense of academic freedom and shared governance in US universities, nationally.