Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. For many years he has been studying American political culture from the perspective of an historian of religions, with a special emphasis on presidents, foreign policy, and issues of war and peace. He is the author of numerous books, including Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin; Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity; American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea; Dr. Strangegod: On the Symbolic Meaning of Nuclear Weapons. He is currently working on a book tentatively titled Something to Fear: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Origins of the National Insecurity State. Prof. Chernus has lectured widely throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Australia, Finland, and Lebanon. His academic website is
http://spot.colorado.edu/~chernus
.
In addition to his academic writing, Prof. Chernus has been a frequent contributor for many years to prominent news websites, including Huffington Post, Alternet, Tomdispatch, ReligionDispatches, Truthout, and Common dreams. His op-eds have also appeared in many major newspapers, including the Atlanta Constitution, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, and Houston Chronicle.
Since his graduate school days (Ph.D., Temple University, History of Judaism, 1975) Prof. Chernus has spoken and written widely in support of a just two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His recent writings on that subject are collected at
http://chernus.wordpress.com
.
