There’s been lots of web traffic in the past 24 hours about the colors of a certain dress. You’ve seen it, right? While it’s kind’a curious, and while its sort’a neat that my wife and I both differ on what it’s colors are, what I think is even more important to note is that so […]
continue reading“A Reluctance to Put the Religious Label”
Did you hear about the White House summit this past week? It was in the news a fair bit and was on “countering violent extremism” — not just those attributed to Muslims but, because such adjectives as Islamic or Jihadist are often glued pretty tightly, at least in some North American and European media and […]
continue readingRigor on the Line
The other day, Jesse Stommel tweeted about public work not being counted for tenure, and that the qualifications for awarding tenure should be changed. I was told recently, "your public work doesn't count for tenure." I find myself more compelled to change tenure than my work. — Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) January 30, 2015 The conversation […]
continue readingThe Illusion of Paradise Lost
Are you following the labor situation at the Episcopal General Theological Seminary in New York? No? Then you may want to at least read this first.
continue readingOut of Bounds
The blokes (that’s the right word, no?) over at The Religious Studies Project posted a link earlier today to an article entitled “The Case Against Mix-and-Match Spirituality” — an article, summarizing a recent session at The Aspen Ideas Festival, that nicely demonstrates how easily (and often) scholars adopt a stance from within the groups they […]
continue readingNo Chili Peppers
There’s a bit of a controversy brewing in social media over a new review essay published in the our field’s main peer review periodical, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, on the book, On Teaching Religion, edited by Chris Lehrich and containing some of the writings on pedagogy by Jonathan Z. Smith. The reviewer, […]
continue readingEmbedded in Religion
What ideological positions are embedded within the practices and conceptions that we commonly identify as religions? Depending on one’s own ideological position and perspective, various people emphasize the patriarchy, ethnocentrism, and violence within various examples of religion. People will certainly debate if those ideological positions are typical in expressions of religion or an accretion to […]
continue readingPatience is a Professional Virtue
Some years ago I met a grad student at the U.S.’s main national scholarly conference in our field — “the big show” is what we’d call it if we were baseball players — who knew some of my friends in the profession and who bumped into me while walking through the book display. Being new […]
continue reading“We’re in a Tight Spot”
I once went to a presentation, delivered by a education consultant, on the history of MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) and how a university such as my own might utilize this technology. The irony was that the whole presentation, which didn’t so much argue as assert that “traditional” lectures are pedagogically uninspiring and unengaging for […]
continue readingHannah Goes to India, Part 2
By Hannah Etchison Hannah Etchison, a graduating senior majoring in Religious Studies with a minor in Asian Studies, is spending six weeks of this fall in India, staying primarily at a monastery where she will learn from the women and help them with their English. This is her second post about that experience. See her […]
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