In order to have a conversation about what Public Scholarship is and why we’re doing it, we’ll have to dodge the elephant in the room – what’s scholarship? What are we talking about when we call ourselves scholars? What had to happen for this thing we call “scholarship” to come into existence? To indulge in […]
continue readingWhat is Public Scholarship?
The term “public scholarship” is problematic for me. By using this term, it seems as though we are implying that there exist a scholar who has no public/audience. What would it mean for a scholar to not have a public? Even if the scholar wrote/created material, not for the “average Joe,” publishers, administrators, or students, […]
continue readingSimulation Theory: How is ‘Religion’ Part of It?
Tyler Dettmar developed this post from a presentation originally created for Prof. Lauren Horn Griffin’s REL 245, American Religious History. Special thanks for editorial assistance from REL’s graduate student Jacob Barrett. In recent years, something called simulation theory has begun appearing more frequently in public discourse. Public figures such as Elon Musk have called attention […]
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 readingWe Really Can’t Afford to Go Back to Normal
A few weeks ago, after emailing a representative of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), it became apparent to me that the Fall conference-going season in our field will be moving forward as the usual in-person meetings instead of the hybrid format that, in the light of a year living with COVID-19, I had assumed […]
continue readingCivil Religion or Christian Nationalism?
How scholars use categories to name things, and thereby identify those things that deserve our critical attention, has long interested me. And among the things that have caught my attention over the years is the once prominent category “civil religion” — one made famous by the late U.S. sociologist Robert Bellah, drawing on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s […]
continue readingOur Actions Have Implications
We’ve been getting some inquiries from friends around the country who have seen news reports on so-called COVID-19 parties hosted by some students in Tuscaloosa (as well as elsewhere in the country, according to reports). The local Fire Department’s Chief reported this to the city council the other day but now we see that it […]
continue readingÉpater les Bourgeoise…?
I do no speak or read French. Many years ago, however, in undergraduate school, I had a professor of English literature who was inordinately fond of the French phrase épater les bourgeoise—as he would translate it on a regular basis, “to shock the ordinary human being out of his [or her] lethargy.” That is, there […]
continue readingThe Performances We Give Every Day
This post is part of a series that originated out of a photo essay assignment in Dr. Simmons’s Interim “Religion and Pop Culture” course that asked students to apply discussion themes to everyday objects or experiences. The time is Halloween 2018, and my nephews—ages nine and seven—are focused on one thing. They eat, sleep, and […]
continue readingPower Always Changes
This post is part of a series that originated out of a photo essay assignment in Dr.Simmons’s Interim “Religion and Pop Culture” course that asked students to apply discussion themes to everyday objects or experiences. As I was sitting at work the other day at Bryant Denny Stadium, the doorbell buzzed turning on the camera […]
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