The eagerly-awaited movie “The Da Vinci Code" is scheduled to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, but the protests, debates and lawsuits have already begun. The thriller was inspired by controversial accounts of the history of the early Christian church and speculation about the role of Mary Magdalene. With this in mind, www.Collegenews.org is providing reporters and editors with a list of news sources and experts from the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges who can be interviewed on various subjects related to the best-selling novel by Dan Brown and its film version produced by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks.

Many of these experts, along with experts on other subjects, can be found online at the Collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts, which is located at: http://www.collegenews.org/newssources.xml . These experts hail from schools that are members of the Annapolis Group, an organization of more than 120 liberal arts colleges and universities in the U.S.

CALIFORNIA

Bruce Fisk - Associate Professor of New Testament, Westmont College - Fisk can speak about Mary Magdalene, her growing popularity with artists, historians and scholars, as well as feminists. He is an expert on the Gnostic Gospels, New Testament, early Christianity and early Judaism. "It has become popular recently to suggest that the church, especially the Roman Catholic Church, is guilty of conspiring to cover up dangerous truths about Jesus and his teachings," says Fisk. However, he says, the Gnostic Gospels do not suggest anywhere that Mary was involved romantically or sexually with Jesus. CONTACT: fisk@westmont.edu or (805) 565-7369.

Nina Rattner Gelbart - Anita Johnson Wand Chair in Women's Studies, Occidental College – Gelbart is an expert in European social and cultural history, as well as the history of women and the French Enlightenment. She is the author of the critically acclaimed The King's Midwife: A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray. CONTACT: gelbart@oxy.edu or 323-259-2584.

Helen Rhee - Assistant Professor of Church History, Westmont College - Rhee teaches History of World Christianity and the entire range of theological history courses: Early and Medieval Christianity, Reformation Christianity, Modern Christianity, American Christianity and Contemporary Christianity. She points out that the most glaring of Dan Brown's misapprehensions is the notion that Jesus was viewed as a mortal prophet and his divinity wasn't established until a vote by early church founders. CONTACT: rhee@westmont.edu or (805) 565-6834.

COLORADO

Dr. David L. Weddle – Professor/Chair of Religion Department, Colorado College – Weddle is the author of articles on sectarian religious movements and teaches courses on New Testament and Gnostic Gospels. He is a past president of American Theological Society (Midwest Division), and a member of the Society of Church History and American Academy of Religion. CONTACT: dweddle@coloradocollege.edu or (719) 389-6615.

CONNECTICUT

Robert W. Baldwin - Associate Professor of Art History, Connecticut College - Baldwin can speak about the many theological and art history misrepresentations in The DaVinci Code. "The novel misrepresents the status of women in Catholicism (and in Renaissance Vatican culture), imagines a completely fanciful reading of Leonardo's ‘Last Supper’ and other works, and substitutes appealing modern myths about gender and religion for historical understanding," Baldwin said. CONTACT: robert.baldwin@conncoll.edu or 860-439-2733

ILLINOIS

Thomas Mayer - Professor of History, Augustana College – An expert in the history and internal workings of the Vatican. Mayer was the first American granted access to Vatican's Archives of the Roman Inquisition. He has served as a commentator for Voice of America and Italian broadcast networks. CONTACT: himayer@augustana.edu or 309-794-7462.

INDIANA

William C. Placher - Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Wabash College - Placher is recognized as one of the great contemporary theologians. He is the author of A History of Christian Theology and The Domestication of Transcendence: Where Modern Thinking about God Went Wrong. CONTACT: placherw@wabash.edu or 765-361-6262.

MASSACHUSETTS

David Bernat - Assistant Professor of Religion, Wellesley College - Bernat can address questions about goddess worship in Biblical tradition as well in Judaism and Christianity. Goddess worship and sacred marriage are featured in The Da Vinci Code. Bernat can discuss the ritual of "sacred marriage," where the sex act between a human couple is meant to symbolize the union of a god and goddess, aiding fertility in the natural world. Contact: acorday@wellesley.edu or 781-283-3321.

David O'Brien - Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic Studies/Director of Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, College of the Holy Cross – O’Brien is among the nation's top historians on American Catholicism. He is the author of numerous books on the subject, including From the Heart of the American Church: Catholic Higher Education and American Culture (1994); Public Catholicism: American Catholics and Public Life (1988) and The Renewal of American Catholicism (1972). CONTACT: dobrien@holycross.edu or 508-793-2775.

Bruce Herman - Associate Professor of Visual Arts, Gordon College - A Christian artist known nationally for his work and for thinking about art and its role, Herman has had works displayed in the Vatican Museum, in New York and across the United States. CONTACT: herman@faith.gordon.edu or 978-927-2306, ext. 4414.

Roberta Olson - Professor of Art, Wheaton College – Olson is an art historian with expertise in Italian Renaissance.  She is a guest curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Air and Space Museum, among others. CONTACT: rolson@wheatonma.edu or 508-286-3579.

David Wulff - Professor of Psychology, Wheaton College – Wulff is an expert on the psychology of religion and the author of Psychology of Religion, Classic and Contemporary. He is a book review editor for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and president of Division 36, Psychology of Religion, of the American Psychological Association. CONTACT: dwulff@wheatonma.edu or 508-286-3691.

MICHIGAN

Mary Ellen Ashcroft – Chaplain/Professor of English, Kalamazoo College - Ashcroft speaks and writes extensively about the women - especially Mary Magdalene - involved in the earliest Christian movement. She is the author of The Magdalene Gospel and Spirited Women. “When I hear people excited about the ‘radical’ feminist message in The Da Vinci Code, I want to say, 'Have I got news for you!’” says Ashcroft. “Christ called women into full discipleship as no one rabbi or religious teacher had done before. In the earliest church people insulted Christianity by calling it a religion of slaves and women, because both of these oppressed groups found themselves in positions of central leadership. That's radical.'" CONTACT: zaistars@kzoo.edu or 269-337-5724 (media relations office).

Bille Wickre - Professor of Visual Arts, Albion College- Wickre is an art historian with special interests in women in art. She examines art in political expression and the creation and researching of public art focusing on domestic violence. CONTACT: bwickre@albion.edu or 517-629-0373.

MINNESOTA

James Hanson - Assistant Professor of Religion/Associate Dean of Students, St. Olaf College - Hanson follows contemporary debates about Jesus within theological and cultural standpoints -- especially depictions of Jesus and Christianity in film and other popular media. His specialty is early Christianity and biblical studies; he holds a doctorate in New Testament studies from Princeton Theological Seminary. CONTACT: hansonj@stolaf.edu, 507-646-3615.

Darrell Jodock - Professor of Religion, Gustavus Adolphus College - Jodock focuses on religion in American culture, the history of Christian thought, the history of Jewish-Christian religion, and Jewish-Christian relations. CONTACT: djodock@gustavus.edu or 507-933-7472.

Anne E. Patrick - Professor of Religion, Carleton College - Patrick is a Catholic nun who has studied and written extensively on women and Christianity, including the movement for ordination of Catholic women, religious ethics, and religion and literature. She is the author of Liberating Conscience: Feminist Explorations in Catholic Moral Theology. CONTACT: apatrick@carleton.edu or 507-646-4228.

Diana Postlethwaite - Professor of English, St. Olaf College – Postelthwaite researches religious threads in contemporary movies. She is a movie reviewer for National Public Radio affiliate WCAL-FM and for the nationally syndicated "51%." Postlethwaite also reviews fiction for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, the Nation and others. CONTACT: postleth@stolaf.edu or 507-646-3205.

Loyal Rue - Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Luther College - Rue is a specialist on the role and power of myth in society, and social conventions of truth, deception and lying. Rue is the author of By the Grace of Guile: The Role of Deception in Natural History and Human Affairs, Amythia: Crisis in the Natural History of Western Culture., and Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution. CONTACT: rueloyal@luther.edu or 319-387-1138.

NEW YORK

Randall Balmer - Ann Whitney Olin Professor of American Religion, Barnard College - The author of several books on religion in America, Balmer has also produced three PBS documentaries, including the award-winning “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory,” based on his book by the same title. He has appeared as commentator on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, Fox News, ABC News and National Public Radio. CONTACT: rbalmer@barnard.columbia.edu or 212-854-3292.

Marc Beard - Visiting Lecturer in Religious Studies, St. Lawrence University - An enthusiastic fan of the book, Beard has used the Dan Brown novel in his course “Feminist Issues in Religion.” An expert on Christian sainthood and hagiography in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, he is able to discuss many topics related to the book and film, including feminism, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, medieval legends and religious symbolism. CONTACT: mbeard@stlawu.edu or 315-229-5131.

Dr. Bruce Chilton - Professor of Religion/Director of Bard Institute of Advanced Theology, Bard College – Chilton is the author of numerous books on the historical Jesus and most recently, of Mary Magdaline: A Biography (Doubleday, 2005). Previous books include Rabbi Jesus and Rabbi Paul  (Doubleday). CONTACT: Chilton@bard.edu or 845-758-6822 ext. 7335.

Joseph Forte - Professor of Art and Architectural History, Sarah Lawrence College - Forte has an interest in religious non-conformism and the arts in the sixteenth century.  "The history of Catholicism in the Renaissance is nowhere as monolithic as people think,” he says. “Though it is highly unlikely that Leonardo would have held Gnostic beliefs as claimed in the Da Vinci Code, he could reasonably have believed in ideas that just fifty years later were considered heretical. The notion that God was a force rather than a person, that his representations were as powerful as his being, that he blurred gender differences would have been acceptable to sophisticated and common pious audiences.  Moreover, esoteric meanings in church plans are by no means uncommon.  As we see in architecture today, what you see is sometimes not all you get." Contact: jforte@slc.edu or (914) 395 2657

Penny Howell Jolly -Professor of Art History/William R. Kenan Chair for Liberal Arts, Skidmore College -Jolly is an art historian of medieval and Renaissance art who focuses on religious symbolism, and one of her specialties is Mary Magdalene iconography. She can speak about Leonardo da Vinci's art, including the “Last Supper;” the medieval and Renaissance Church and theology; and the cult of Mary Magdalene in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, including feminist perspectives on the saint. CONTACT:  Andrea J. Wise, director of media relations, awise@skidmore.edu or 518-580-5736

Steve Humphries-Brooks - Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College - Humphries-Brooks says the film shows divergent understandings of Jesus. “These are not the secularists against the Christians, but rather two very American and Christian streams of the interpretation of Jesus for and from America -- the spiritual seekers and the traditionalists.  Hollywood knows these groups and has created the American Christ to appeal to one or the other,” Humphries-Brooks says. CONTACT: sbrooks@hamilton.edu or 315-796-6088

Judith Plaskow - Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College – Plaskow is the co-founder of Journal on Feminist Studies in Religion and co-edited the journal for its first ten years. She is co-editor of Womanspirit Rising and Weaving The Visions, anthologies on feminist theology, and the author of Standing Again At Sinai: Judaism from A Feminist Perspective. She is President of the American Academy of Religion. She CONTACT: jplaskow@manhattan.edu or 718-862-7123.

NORTH CAROLINA

H. Gregory Snyder ­- Associate Professor of Religion, Davidson College - Snyder labels The Da Vinci Code “a highly combustible mix of truth and error,” based on his specialized study of New Testament Literature and the social world of early Christianity. He teaches, writes, and lectures frequently on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic scriptures from Nag Hammadi and other subjects related to the growth of early Christianity. Contact: grsnyder@davidson.edu or (704) 894-2260.

OREGON

Richard Rohrbaugh - Professor of Religious History, Lewis & Clark College – Rohrbaugh is the author of Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, the latest contribution to the anthropological study of early Christianity. He is a member of the Context Group, a group of 40 Biblical scholars from throughout the world studying the New Testament from the perspective of the time in which it was written. CONTACT: rbaugh@lclark.edu or 503-768-7486.

PENNSYLVANIA

Donald Braxton - Associate Professor of Religion, Juniata College – Braxton has an interest in religious imagery in movies, TV and literature. He also teaches courses on the nature of evil, on religious imagery in landscape paintings and on science and evolution. CONTACT: braxton@juniata.edu or 814-641-3530.

Charles M. Brown - Assistant Professor of Sociology, Albright College - Charles Brown has been widely quoted on popular culture topics ranging from holiday customs to the “Star Wars” movies. His research is focused on Christian popular culture. He was a contributor to Religious Innovation in a Global Age: Essays on the Construction of Spirituality. CONTACT: cbrown@alb.edu or 610-921-7865.

Jennifer L. Koosed - Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Albright College - Koosed can speak about the history and traditions of Mary Magdalene, women in religion, and the Gnostic scriptures.  Koosed can answer questions about Mary Magdalene, both in scholarship and in popular culture: who was she, what did she do, what was her relationship to Jesus, and what was her position in the early Church? CONTACT: jkoosed@alb.edu  or 610-921-7760.

Ken Lokensgard - Assistant Professor of Religion, Gettysburg College - Lokensgard focuses upon religious diversity in America and popular representations and expressions of religion.  He can address how the movie reveals a growing polarization between Americans who regard institutional religion with suspicion and those who regard it with reverence.  He can also address what the movie reveals about contemporary American understanding of religion, in relation to "spirituality," paganism, academia, and art. CONTACT: lokensgard@gettysburg.edu or 717-337-6783.

Eric Michael Mazur - Associate Professor of Religion, Bucknell University – Mazur serves on the editorial board of the on-line Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. He was a contributing co-editor for Art and the Religious Impulse (Bucknell University Press, 2002) as well as for God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2001). He was quoted in a 2004 TV Guide cover story on religion and television series. CONTACT: mazur@bucknell.edu or 570-577-3525.

Gordon Williams - Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Ursinus College – Williams questions the math cited in The Da Vinci Code, and contends that it casts a shadow on its "scholarship." Intrigued by the role of mathematics in Renaissance art, Williams says that while there is much of interest about the Golden Ratio - some of it dating back earlier than Dan Brown's story reaches - "a lot of what Dan Brown says falls into the category of either almost right or outright wrong." CONTACT: gwilliams@ursinus.edu.

TENNESSEE

Ryan M. Byrne - Assistant Professor for Religious Studies, Rhodes College - Professor Byrne is an expert in Jewish history, biblical law and gender issues in ancient Israel. He is the  veteran of several archaeological expeditions to Israel and Syria, including a stint with the Israel Antiquities Authority. news@rhodes.edu or 901-843-3530 (media relations office).

Gail Streete – Professor of Religious Studies, Rhodes College – Streete is the author of Her Image of Salvation: Female Saviors and Formative Christianity, and The Strange Woman: Power and Sex in the Bible. She became intrigued with the popularity of The Da Vinci Code when several students asked her to read it. An expert on Mary Magdalene and the hidden Gnostic gospels, Professor Streete has used the widespread fascination with the novel as the basis for several classes. CONTACT: gstreete@rhodes.edu  or 901-843-3742 

TEXAS

David Gaines, associate professor of English, Southwestern University – Gaines can speak about the movie as a pop culture phenomenon. “It’s been nearly 70 years since we have seen anything comparable,” Gaines says. “This is the new millennium’s version of Gone with the Wind.” He says the movie incorporates five themes that America is fascinated with: conspiracy theories, sexual politics, inner workings of the Catholic Church, Italy and Tom Hanks. CONTACT: gainesd@southwestern.edu or 512-863-1494.

Thomas Howe - Professor of Art History, Southwestern University - Like the book’s main character, Howe is a Harvard-trained art historian who specializes in the broad tradition of classical art in European culture, including Italian Renaissance. He can speak about the “creative use of misevidence” in the book related to art history. Howe also is an historian of Italian culture and can speak about topics such as the history of the Italian papacy, Opus Dei, and the Knights Templar. CONTACT: howet@southwestern.edu  or 512-863-1376.

WASHINGTON

Greta Austin - Assistant Professor of Religion, University of Puget Sound - Austin teaches medieval religious histories of Western Europe. Her work focuses on the intersection of religion and law, and on the history of ideas in the central Middle Ages. She has researched numerous medieval manuscripts, paleography and the transmission of texts. CONTACT: mediarelations@ups.edu or 253-879-3752.

Douglas R. Edwards - Professor of Religion, University of Puget Sound – Edwards’ area of study is Biblical archaeology, historical accounts of Jesus, interpreting the Bible and religion in the Roman Empire. He has also consulted ABC's “20/20" on a program looking at current quests of Noah's Ark. A working archaeologist, Edwards has directed excavations in Israel and the Ukraine. CONTACT: mediarelations@ups.edu or (253) 879-3748.

OVERSEAS

HONG KONG

Dennis McCann - Professor of Bible and Religion on Fulbright Fellowship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong through August, Agnes Scott College - A Christian ethicist by training with deep insight into Catholicism, he can provide observations about reception of the movie from Hong Kong. He is a source on Hong Kong and China, business and economic ethics and some areas of international politics. CONTACT: dmccann@cuhk.edu.hk