It was indeed an odd summer, for everyone. That we all know. What you might not know is that the REL faculty, despite being home since mid-March — minimizing trips out of the house, shopping carefully, and, in some cases, spending lots of their time either homeschooling children or packing up and moving houses (whether […]
continue readingAlways Look at Who’s Talking
As the AAR presents its newly drafted Religious Literacy Guidelines, Sierra Lawson (BA ’17, MA ’19) and Prof. Steven Ramey return to their research on the implications of classification to raise important questions about the politics and consequences of such a framing. Religious literacy, which typically refers to knowledge about religions, differences between religions, and […]
continue readingIs It Reverent?
Andrew Smith is a Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Religious Studies major from Madison, AL, and is known for his exceptional kindness, intelligence, dashing good looks, and incredible humility. The following blog post was written for REL 360: Popular Culture/Humanities.
continue reading“It’s not about eating pork”
If you’re watching the Netflix series Master of None (starring the comedian Aziz Ansari), or if you’re a scholar of religion on social media much, then you may know about season two’s episode entitled Religion.
continue readingOutlawed Violation of Human Rights or Protected Religious Practice?
Given the prominence of debates over classification in my classes I’m always on the look-out for a good e.g., something useful in getting us thinking about the interests driving classification systems and their practical effects — and, perhaps, illustrating how naming something as religion plays a role in all this.
continue readingMake It So
Did you catch Titus Hjelm‘s excellent post the other day? His argument concerned the manner in which otherwise routine claims or actions are represented by specific groups, for specific reasons, as controversial; the apparent controversy of some religions (notably, in his post, Islam — at least to a number of people in so-called Western countries) […]
continue reading“I belong to no religion. My religion is love”: Sufism, Religious Studies, and Love
By now you’ve probably heard about the theme for next year’s American Academy of Religion (AAR) annual meeting, revolutionary love, and the controversy surrounding it. Some of my colleagues, Russell McCutcheon and Merinda Simmons, have written about it, and the Bulletin for the Study of Religion is posting a series of responses. Revolutionary love, or […]
continue readingShould Sunday Schools Be Registered with the Government?
The head of the British government’s Ofsted — the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills — Sir Michael Wilshaw, was on the radio the other day, discussing a variety of things that scholars of religion might find interesting.
continue readingGod Bless America
By Katie Brinser Katie Brinser is from Lindenhurst, IL. She is a senior majoring in International Studies and Finance with a minor in Arabic Language and Culture. This post was originally written for Eleanor Finnegan‘s REL 370 class In September, Pope Francis visited the United States and became the first pope to address the US […]
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 […]
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