Gary Laderman is the chair of the Department of Religion, Emory University, professor of American Religious History and Cultures, and the editor of the publication Sacred Matters. Dr. Laderman is the author of Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States (2010). He is the author of two books on death in America: The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883 (1999) and Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (2003). He has co-edited two encyclopedias, Religion and American Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Traditions, Diversity, and Popular Expressions (2003) and Science, Religion, Societies: Histories, Cultures, Controversies (2006). Laderman has been interviewed on topics ranging from death and funerals to horror films and televangelists in a variety of media, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers and television programs. He writes for various publications, including Huffington Post.
In addition to serving as chairperson of the department, Laderman is a founder of the online religion magazine, Religion Dispatches. He is continuing to research, write, and teach on the sacred in American life generally, and is currently working on a book project exploring American religious history from a global perspective. He has received funding from the Lilly Endowment, Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, and the Ford Foundation. And he has organized numerous conferences at Emory University.