The Sneetches. Do you know the story? Dr. Seuss’ story has stuck with me. Somehow, this is what came to mind when I read through the AAR’s draft guidelines for evaluating digital scholarship. After reading through the draft, I began to wonder whether appending “digital” to the work of a scholar is akin to the […]
continue reading“Are You in There, Satan?”
Ok, on the heels of a post, earlier today, about explaining the behavior of turkeys, I just came across this video and a friend’s fun comment about this possibly being evidence of the gates of hell. It’s in a cemetery, after all.
continue readingMaking the Strange Familiar
Have you seen The Carbonaro Effect? It’s a TV show where an undercover magician does tricks in settings where people don’t expect to see magic performed, and we get to watch their reaction. Maybe he’s working at a cash register in a grocery store and finds a live chick in the dozen eggs you’re buying […]
continue readingThe Devil’s in the Details
My early book was cited near the start of Chris Kavanagh‘s recent online essay, as an example of a work in the study of religion that — despite him agreeing that there is “much that is valid in such critiques” — seems to constitute “academic minutiae” that we should put behind us, so we can […]
continue readingDemocracy is Risky
A couple years ago I gave a talk at Lehigh University (a lecture that became chapter 8 in a book I published not long after). The topic was on my frustration with how scholars of religion — because they define their object of study as a universally present and deeply meaningful human impulse — often […]
continue readingCalculating the Other: ISIS and Paris
After a lovely dinner at a restaurant the other night, with my mom and husband, we came home, checked our cell phones, and were consumed by the unfolding story about the attacks in Paris. In the flurry of articles trying to make sense of the situation, “Crimes Jihadists Will Sentence You to Death For,” caught […]
continue readingHow Your Phone Defines Religion
As the Faculty Technology Liaison to the College of Arts and Sciences at UA, I am part of a Mac Administrators forum. I was surprised to notice the exclusion of deities from emoji eligibility while glancing over an update notice. After some investigation, I was surprised to learn about the selection factors of the Unicode Consortium. In […]
continue reading“It’s Absolutely Essential That You Continue, Teacher…”
The other day, my REL 245 class, concerned with investigating some of the background assumptions that make it possible for many scholars today to study religion in America in terms of choice — as if religious consumers are shopping in a competitive spiritual marketplace — took a look at Stanley Milgram’s famous series of psychology […]
continue readingA Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 11: Research Assistants
This is an installment in an ongoing series on the American Academy of Religion’s recently released draft statement on research responsibilities. An index of the complete series (updated as each article is posted) can be found here. The second to the last item on the draft document is the only one that concerns our work […]
continue readingA Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 2: Academic Freedom
This is an installment in an ongoing series on the American Academy of Religion’s recently released draft statement on research responsibilities. An index of the complete series (updated as each article is posted) can be found here. The first of the thirteen bullet points that comprise the main part of the draft document reads as […]
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