If you’ve paid attention to the news in the US over the past week or so, you’ll know that a bomber was loose in Austin, Texas, and that the suspect was cornered by authorities the other day and blew himself up.
continue readingA Student Report from WordCamp Birmingham
This past weekend (October 21-22), I attended the annual WordPress conference in Birmingham, Alabama: WordCamp Birmingham. You may be asking: If she’s in an MA program for Religion in Culture, why does she need to go to a WordPress conference? An important aspect of the program is a focus on digital and public humanities — […]
continue readingLooking Over and Overlooking
Thanks @McCutcheonSays for this mention of my online syllabus, in his discussion of Janet Jakobsen’s piece on relhttps://t.co/EkJiVE3hPM — Malory Nye (@malorynye) October 1, 2017 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Malory Nye’s tweet, the other day, got me thinking… So I replied: For a while, now, I’ve had this feeling: as happens with any new and successfully reproduced social […]
continue readingGrist for the Millstone
I recall a conference, quite some years ago, where, as part of a panel discussion, I was once called “a vulgar Smithian”; it was a criticism that responded to my interest in the category “religion” itself, thus linking me to Jonathan Z.’s often-cited (and, these days, often-criticized) claim from the opening to his 1982 essay […]
continue readingUnderstanding Our Present Moment
My colleague tweeted the following the other day: If only there was an academic discipline that studied myth, history, and meaning-making that could say something about these monuments. — Michael J. Altman (@MichaelJAltman) August 17, 2017 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js It was a bit tongue-in-cheek to be sure, but it made a good point, I think, as he […]
continue readingThe Limits of the Field
Only recently did it come to my attention that one of the journals in our field now seems to understand itself in a curiously narrow way.
continue readingBarometers in the Field: Another Student Report from the Regional AAR
Sierra Lynn Lawson is an Anthropology and Religious Studies double major and a Spanish minor. She is from a small town in Wyoming and hopes to study the illegality of midwifery in Alabama as it relates to post-civil war identity formation. I was most pleased with my experience at the Southeastern Commission for the Study […]
continue reading“Yes, and I’ve Met His Dog”: A Student Report from the Regional AAR
Parker Evans is junior studying English and Religious Studies. He spends most of his time drinking coffee and making reading lists when he should be reading. The regional AAR, or SECSOR, was a fantastic chance for a professionalizing experience. Sierra Lawson, another REL major, and I arrived late in the afternoon, and between checking into […]
continue readingOf Words and Things: Introduction to a Guest Series
A longstanding debate across disciplines arose once again at a co-sponsored panel at the conference of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), last November, during a session (pictured above) devoted to reviewing Brent Nongbri’s recent book, Before Religion.
continue readingReadying the Ground for Us
I’ve got some plants in my office that William Doty gave me back in 2001. Peace lilies. I was thinking about that yesterday, during a memorial service for William (who passed away on January 2, 2017, at the age of 77), at which people said some kind words and told a few stories — some […]
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