First off, I would like to say that I am so happy to be back at Pres Hall! I am just getting back into the swing of things after my absence, and I still have a ways to go before I catch up, but I will get there. Soon. This week’s assignment, which was using […]
continue readingHunting Witches: a Social Constructivist Perspective
Lauren Thompson is a senior majoring in Psychology and minoring in Asian Studies. Lauren was a student in Prof. Loewen’s REL101 “The Violent and the Sacred” in Spring 2022. As a senior this year, Lauren will further explore an interest in Religious Studies and Occultism while applying for graduate studies. The history of Western Europe […]
continue readingWho Believes in Conspiracy Theories?
As a scholar in religious studies, my interest was piqued when a recent “The Daily” episode from the New York Times discussed community formation in Birds Aren’t Real, a movement / conspiracy theory that claims the government has replaced birds with drones to conduct widespread surveillance. The analysis of people who connect with others […]
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 readingSneaker Culture: An Item-Based Religious Movement?
Drew Whinery, from Tuscaloosa, AL, is a senior majoring in Music, with a minor in Criminal Justice. The following post developed from a presentation originally created for an REL class with Prof. Lauren Horn Griffin. As a college student, I tend to stay up with trends. One that has been popular for years is known […]
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 readingCan We Analyze Trumpism as a Millenarian Movement?
Elizabeth Tagg is a graduating senior in the Department of Religious Studies, writing a thesis on apocalyptic rhetoric in the age of Trump. Donald Trump built his reputation as a political outsider who could “drain the swamp,” fix a broken system, and make America great again. Indeed, in his 2016 RNC speech, he declared that […]
continue readingOur Pre- & Inter- Pandemic Teaching was Never “Normal” (p.s. nor our post-pandemic teaching, too!)
Two Perspectives I wish to talk about specific methods I and my colleagues adopted for pre-, inter and post-pandemic teaching.* I come at this with two perspectives: Teaching – As a freshly-tenured professor of religious studies at a public, R1 university (University of Alabama). My current research coordinates and publishes research with the Global-Critical Philosophy […]
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 […]
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