Dr. Alfred Kentigern Siewers is chair of the English Department at Bucknell University and warden of the Holy Protection Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Lewisburg, Pennyslvania. He teaches and writes on medieval literature and the history of ideas of nature, and on public rhetoric related to secularism and faith. A native Chicagoan and former urban affairs writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, he has a PhD In English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an MA in Early British Studies from the University of Wales, an M.S.J. from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, and is currently completing a Diploma in Pastoral Theology from the St. John of Kronstadt Pastoral School of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. His views are his own.