Caroline Collins
Thesis title: To Make Gods of Men, The Emancipator of Worlds: The Devil and the Death of the Tsar in The Brothers Karamazov
PhD supervisors:
Background
I received my Master’s of Theological Studies (MTS) from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Religion from Southwestern University. My research interests include portrayals of the Devil in poetry and prose, and the intersection of religion, literature, and politics, of which my current thesis research reflects. My doctoral thesis is on Dostoevsky’s portrayal of the Devil in The Brothers Karamazov, using an interdisciplinary approach of religion, literature, and politics. I am aiming to illustrate the Devil as a political strategy for Dostoevsky’s anxious reflections on the nineteenth-century revolutionary movement--specifically its evolved strands of terrorism and the campaign to assassinate Alexander II-- and Russia's political and religious future in this novel.
Qualifications
MTS (summa cum laude), Southern Methodist University (USA), Biblical Studies Concentration
BA (magna cum laude), Southwestern University (USA), Religion
Responsibilities & affiliations
Graduate Fellow: Northwestern University Research Initiative in Russian Philosophy, Literature, and Religious Thought
Research Collaborator: North American Research Collective - Religious Trauma (NARC-RT)
Undergraduate teaching
Tutor
The Bible in Literature (Semester 2, 2025-2026)
The God(s) of the Philosophers: Proposals and Problems (Semester 2, 2024-2025)
Popular Religion, Women and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Semester 1, 2024-2025)
Current research interests
Religion and Literature; Religion and Politics; The Devil in Poetry, Plays, and Prose; Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Russian Literature; Nineteenth Century Russian Revolutionary Movement; Russian Revolutionary Terrorism; Religion and Literature in the Twentieth Century American Political Landscape.Past research interests
I have undertaken many projects in the Religion and Literature intersection throughout the completion of my BA and MTS, such as analyses of the works of Dante, James Weldon Johnson, Henri Bergson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Louis Chrétien.Conference details
American Academy of Religion - Online June Annual Meeting (2025)
SGSAH Scottish Universities Theology and Religious Studies Postgraduate Research Day Conference (2024)
Southwest Commission on Religious Studies Conference (2023)
Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society Regional Meeting (2022)
Participant
“‘No More God(s), Frenchmen’: Reading the Devil and the Church-State in The Marquis de Sade’s Libertine Novels from the Bastille to the Reign of Terror.” Stories of Origin: A Workshop on Literature and Religion. Jointly organized by the ‘Literature and Religion’ research group, University of Bergen, Norway, and the Scottish Network for Religion and Literature (October 2024).
“The Universal Bow: Philosophies of Love and Loss in Dostoevsky’s ‘The Grand Inquisitor.’” Literature and Religion Nugget Seminar. Jointly organized by the ‘Literature and Religion’ research group, University of Bergen, Norway, and the Scottish Network for Religion and Literature (November 2023).
Papers delivered
"The Guise of ‘the Gentleman’: Reading the Devil and the Anticipation of Alexander II’s Assassination in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1879–80)."
“The Metamorphosis: The Devil Conceived in Perceptions of the Self and the Other in The Brothers Karamazov.”
“Circuits of the Past: Reading the Resurrection Appearances in John 20 through Phenomenological Literature.”
“Foundations of Sapphire: Galatians 4:27 and Obstetrical Literature in the Hebrew Bible.”
“The Art of Christian War: Revisiting Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s Jesus Camp (2006).” Film Review for Transpositions Online Journal from the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (University of St Andrews) Fall 2022. https://www.transpositions.co.uk/the-art-of-christian-war-revisiting-heidi-ewing-and-rachel-gradys-jesus-camp/
The Charley T. and Jesse James Bible Award (Southern Methodist University, 2022)
David Knox Porter Award (Southwestern University, 2020)