Aerial view of campus with Williamsport, the Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Mountain as a backdrop

Michael E. Heyes

Michael E. Heyes

Education:

M.A., University of Washington
Ph.D., Rice University

Contact Information:

(570) 321-4296
Campus Post Office Box 3
heyes@lycoming.edu
Personal Website

Associate Professor of Religion and Chair of the Department

Michael E. Heyes received a Master of Arts in comparative religion from the University of Washington in 2008 and doctorate in religious studies from Rice University in 2015. His dissertation, “The Metamorphosis of Monsters: Christian Identity in Medieval England and the Life of St. Margaret,” examines several late medieval Lives of St. Margaret written in England to show that the monsters of the Life offer perspective on the construction of Christian sexual identity in both professional religious and lay communities in medieval England.

Prior to Lycoming, Heyes taught at Rice University and held a visiting instructorship at the University of South Florida – Tampa.

Heyes research interests can be roughly separated into the medieval and the modern. Regarding the medieval, his interests include Saints’ Lives Literature, religion and literature, race and gender in the medieval world, medieval magic, and demonology and monstrosity in the Middle Ages. In the modern world, he is primarily interested in religion and film, notions of American Exceptionalism, American Civil Religion, and demons and monsters in modernity.

His teaching interests include introductory and theory driven courses in religion, history of Christianity (especially the antique and medieval periods), religion in fiction and film, western esotericism and magic, and demons and monsters in religion.

Heyes’ non-academic interests include novels, primarily science fiction and fantasy, as well as roleplaying games, canoeing, fishing, kayaking, and spending time with his wife, Stacey, and their son, Xander.