Contemporary Christian ethics specialist Dr. Ellen Ott Marshall will present this year’s Marie NeSmith Fowler lecture at Samford University Thursday, March 8. Her topic will be “Emotions, Relationships and Other Complications: Learning from the Scholarship of Women in the Field of Christian Ethics.”

Marshall, associate professor of Christian ethics and conflict transformation at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, will speak at 10 a.m. in Reid Chapel. The public is invited free of charge.

Marshall’s scholarly interest is in issues of violence and peacemaking, ethical questions in literature and film, and the dynamic relationship between faith, history and ethics. She is a writer and frequent speaker on those and related topics. Her most recent book is Christians in the Public Square: Faith that Transforms Politics (Abingdon Press, 2008).

Prior to joining the Emory faculty in 2009, Marshall taught at Claremont School of Theology and Elizabethtown College. She also has been a caseworker with the Church World Service Refugee Resettlement Program and a sponsorship developer with United Methodist Committee on Relief. 

She holds a bachelor’s degree in religion from Davidson College, a master’s in international peace studies from the University of Notre Dame, a master’s in religion from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. in religion, ethics and society from Vanderbilt.

The lecture series is sponsored by Samford’s Christian Women’s Leadership Center. It honors the late Mrs. Fowler, a Samford graduate and longtime Hartselle, Ala., resident who was one of the first female pharmacists and pharmacy owners in the state.