HTI Alumni
Dr. Ángel J. Gallardo
Assistant Professor of Church History at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Field(s) of Study: Church History & Religion and Society
Dr. Ángel J. Gallardo is Assistant Professor of Church History at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas, where he teaches courses on the history of Christianity, race and religion in the Americas, and directs the Certificado en Ministerio program. Prior to joining Austin Seminary, he served on the faculty of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. A native of Mexico City, Dr. Gallardo is the co-chair for the Latina/o Religion, Culture and Society program unit in the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature. He also serves on the General Board of the Hispanic Summer Program.
Dr. Gallardo is working on his first book which considers how, in the wake of 1492, theological notions about nature undergird or undermine colonial configurations of power in the modern world. His research explores the significance of place (latitude) in the writings of Christopher Columbus and Bartolomé de Las Casas. This project shows how early Iberian empires racialized religious identity and mapped hemispheric dominion by leveraging a “theological geography,” that is, a scholastic vision of the natural world. His article “Mapping the Origins of Christianity in the Americas” was published by Bloomsbury in the Religion in North America Series (spring 2023).