Ralph Keen (born 1957) is an American

historian of religion A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

and an academic administrator at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

. Trained in classics as an undergraduate with graduate work in the

history of Christianity The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christian countries, and the Christians with their various denominations, from the 1st century to the present. Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus, a Jewish teach ...

, Keen has since 2010 been professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and since 2015 he has been dean of the Honors College there. His research in Reformation-era religious thought includes ''Divine and Human Authority in Reformation Thought'' (1997), ''Luther’s Lives'' (2003), ''The Christian Tradition'' (2008), ''Exile and Restoration in Jewish Thought'' (2011), as well as editions of works by

Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...

and Johannes Cochlaeus. Keen is also a co-editor of the monograph series ''Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700'' published by Brill. In 2018, he was president of the

American Society of Church History The American Society of Church History (ASCH) was founded in 1888 with the disciplines of Christian denominational and ecclesiastical history as its focus. Today the society's interests include the broad range of the critical scholarly perspectiv ...

. Keen received a bachelor's degree in Greek from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, master's degree in classics from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, and a Ph.D. in the history of Christianity from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

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* 1957 births 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Alaska Pacific University faculty American historians of religion American university and college faculty deans Columbia College (New York) alumni Historians from Illinois Historians of the Catholic Church Living people Presidents of the American Society of Church History Reformation historians University of Chicago alumni University of Illinois Chicago faculty University of Iowa faculty Yale University alumni American male non-fiction writers {{Christianity-historian-stub