Willi Braun is an associate professor of religion and the director of the interdisciplinary program of religious studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton. His areas of interest are the writings and social formation of Christianities in the Roman Empire, theories of mythmaking, and the use of the category "religion" in the study of religion. He is the editor (with Russell T. McCutcheon) of the "Guide to the Study of Religion". He has been a long-time editor of the international journal "Method and Theory in the Study of Religion".