Dr. Richard Liantonio

Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible
Assistant Director of Library
TitleIXCoordinator/EquityComplianceOfficer

Phone: 913-253-5036
Email:
Curriculum Vitae

Education

 

Denomination

The Episcopal Church

Discipline or Specialty

Hebrew Bible and Biblical Hebrew Language

Disciplinary/Research Interests

  • Biblical Hebrew Poetry
  • Book of Psalms
  • Cognitive Linguistics
  • Metaphor Theory
  • Emotion
  • Happiness/Unhappiness in the Hebrew Bible

What do you hope your students come away with when they leave your classroom?

I hope students come away with a transformed relationship with the Hebrew Bible,feel more confident inengaging withitand using it in ministry, and increasinglyexperience it as an impetus to embody and enact God’s love and justice in the world.

What is your teaching style?

I understand teaching as a holistic vocation that nurtures intellectual curiosity, emotional authenticity, cultural competency, spiritual vitality, and embodied love, while laying foundations for ministry praxis, justice work, and human flourishing. I design scaffolded, skill-focused assignments that cultivate students’ critical awareness of the Hebrew Bible as a site of engagement across cultural and religious difference with ongoing relevance to contemporary questions and contexts. My pedagogy incorporates innovative methods—including gamification, creative assignment options, immersive audiovisual materials, multimodal reinforcement, and flexible completion schedules—to foster learning with minimal anxiety among a diverse student body.

Representative Courses Taught

HBS310 Engaging the Hebrew Bible and its Cultures

HSB320/321 Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Language

HBS426 The Psalms

Recent Publications

With Lifted Head and Shining Face: A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of Metaphors for Happiness in the Psalms and Ancient Near Eastern Literature.Under contract with Pickwick Publications.

Review ofThe JPS Bible Commentary: Psalms 120–150, by Adele Berlin (invited review).Journal of Jewish Studies75.2 (October 2025).

Richard Liantonio 2024 Portraits (2)-800x1199