Berkley Center

Karen Swallow Prior is a professor of English at Liberty University and a research fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. She is a contributing writer for Christianity Today, Think Christian, and the Atlantic and a member of the Faith Advisory Council of the Humane Society of the United States. Prior is also the author of Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (2014) and Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (2012). She received the President's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2003 and the Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013. Prior earned her Ph.D. and M.A. at the State University of New York at Buffalo and her B.A. at Daemen College.