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 readingA Good Alabaman
Allie Rash is a senior double majoring in Mathematics and Religious Studies. She hails from Franklin, TN but calls North Carolina and Kansas home as well. She wrote this post for Dr. Finnegan’s class, REL 370: Hijab, Hip Hop, and Halal. Gerald Allen is the State Senator from the 21st district of Alabama, representing Hale, Pickens, and […]
continue readingMenken’s Isn’t Chanel
Victoria Truitt is a Senior at the University of Alabama studying Political Science and Spanish. She spends her free time binge-watching her favorite shows on Netflix and questioning every little thing about today’s culture. She aspires to work in politics after graduation. When I think of identity, I think of a constantly developing definition that […]
continue readingConflict of Interest?
The other day I was watching an episode of HBO’s weekly satirical news round-up, “Last Week Tonight,” in which they focused on how payday loan businesses prey on poor people — specifically noting an interaction in the Texas state legislature in which Vicki Truitt (pictured above), then a Republican state legislator, called out one of […]
continue readingHow We Encouraged Iraqi Sectarianism
A graduate of the department recently highlighted an intriguing Washington Post blog discussing the turmoil in Iraq. Avoiding the simplistic notions of blame (the Bush administration’s invasion or the Obama administration’s withdrawal of troops) that often depend on one’s own ideological perspective, the post develops a more nuanced historical narrative.
continue readingBig R and Little r
I recently wrote a review essay on the current state of scholarship on the category “religion” for the European history of religions journal, Numen (which comes out in 2015, I gather). It was fun to write, since its been 20 years since I first wrote a review essay on the same topic — “just how […]
continue readingMisdirection
The blogosphere is lighting up in response to yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that some “closely held” corporations can be considered to have “sincerely held religious beliefs” (i.e., those of their owners, of course, and not those of their employees) worth protecting — and, voila, some corporations can now be exempt from certain aspects of […]
continue readingChutzpah isn’t Hubris
I recall a conversation I once had, some years ago, about the possibility that our department might try to hire someone who worked on Asia, i.e., that we had submitted a proposal for such a position, but, of course, who knows if we’ll get it. The person with whom I spoke, who did his own […]
continue readingBackstory: Prof. Ted Trost
“Backstory” is a series that asks the REL Faculty to tell us a little bit about themselves, to explore how they became interested in the academic study of religion and their own specialty, elaborating on their current work both within and outside the University. Where are you from? I went to elementary school in Pennsylvania, […]
continue readingBackstory: Prof. Merinda Simmons
“Backstory” is a series that asks the REL Faculty to tell us a little bit about themselves, to explore how they became interested in the academic study of religion and their own specialty, elaborating on their current work both within and outside the University. Where are you from? Tampa, FL. I grew up celebrating what […]
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