Larry Yarbrough

Oliver Larry Yarbrough is the Tillinghast Professor Emeritus of Religion. During his 35 years at Middlebury, his teaching and research focused on the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism in the early Mediterranean world. He chaired the Religion Department, the Middle East Studies Program, and the Arabic and Modern Hebrew Programs, and he served as the director of the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life. Yarbrough served on most major College and faculty committees and was also a member of the trustee and faculty governance committees. Under the auspices of the Charles P. Scott endowment, Yarbrough coordinated College symposia on religion in America, religion and art, and religion and international conflict. Fourteen Middlebury faculty and alumni/ae contributed to two collections of essays on the Passion of Jesus that grew out of the last of these Scott Symposia. Yarbrough also coordinated two Clifford Symposia, the most recent one focusing on Toni Morrison’s The Origin of Others. He is married to Amy Hastings, who served as campaign coordinator and director of development at the College in the 1980s. They have two grown sons. Yarbrough retired from the faculty in 2019.