My father used to tell me that we were made up of stories, our and stories of those who came before us. He told me that, “You don’t exist if you don’t know your stories.” For most, the term “humanities” relates to the study of how “people process and document the human experience.” (http://shc.stanford.edu/what-are-the-humanities) For […]
continue readingOriginalism is not Original
I have never wanted to go to law school or to become a lawyer, though interestingly enough, at least for me, as a scholar of both the Holocaust/Shoah and historical and contemporary genocides, I find myself addressing so-called “legal questions” in both.
continue readingTip of the Iceberg
The common English phrasing “religious expression” carries with it a set of assumptions about what scholars of religion study as well as how and why they study it, though the term is today so widespread that I doubt many think much about what it entails.
continue readingDoing Theory
Often in the study of religion you’ll hear people saying things like “I don’t do theory” (yes, there’s often an emphasis on the verb, akin to saying “I don’t do [insert something with which you disagree or dislike]) or maybe you’ll come across a conversation on when to introduce theory to undergraduate students — right […]
continue readingThe Uses of Symbolism
There are certainly those scholars of religion who will study yesterday’s episode — when a large number of peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square, just north of the White House, were dispersed by police and the national guard with tear gas, batons, and flash-bang canisters (otherwise known as stun grenades), about a half hour before a […]
continue reading“Violence is Never the Answer”
If you were watching CNN midday today then you might have heard LZ Granderson‘s interview, commenting on several days of nation-wide protests in the US that have resulted from yet another African American man dying at the hands of the police — this time a man named George Floyd, in Minneapolis. What Granderson said caught […]
continue readingA Case Study in Framing and Interpretation
Brady Duke is a senior at the University of Alabama majoring in Religious Studies and Latin. After graduation, he plans on pursuing a master’s degree in Classical philology with a concentration in Latin language and literature. Throughout this semester, we have been learning various ways in which individuals, either scholars or laypersons, interact, define, and interpret […]
continue readingFamily Resemblance and the Social Risks of Guess Who
Years ago, before I had kids, I was chitchatting with an acquaintance. I cannot recall what we were actually talking about. The memory is remarkable to me because these days I am rarely alone enough to enjoy a leisurely adult conversation. I can’t believe now how much I took such moments for granted back then. […]
continue readingGetting the Party Started on Syllabus Day
The first day of class can be a bit nerve-racking, even for profs. One might think that profs have it easy at the start of the semester, but we all know the importance of first impressions. And for myself, there can be a lot of anxiety around those initial activities. How much of the syllabus […]
continue reading(Just Like) Starting Over Pt. 3
Ellie Cochran is a senior at UA, majoring in Religious Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies with a depth study in Environmental Management. She will be graduating this May and plans to pursue a Master of Science in Family Financial Planning & Counseling. As I sat in Professor Crews’ class on a Tuesday in early February, I […]
continue reading