Matt Sheedy (Ph.D) lectures in the department of religious studies at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, and is associate editor of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion. His research interests include critical social theory, theories of secularism, atheism and science v. religion in the public realm, as well as representations of Christianity, Islam, and Native […]
continue readingIt May Be Simpler Than You Think
I saw the above tweet yesterday, which prompted me to mull over why we generally think that the role of religion is such a complicated thing to study. It occurred to me that it is complicated (i) if you fail to recognize that there’s been trained scholars of religion out there for well over 100 […]
continue readingConstructing Judaism and Claiming Christianity: Modern Jewish Philosophy in an Age of Theory
Robert Erlewine is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Illinois Wesleyan University where he teaches courses related to philosophy of religion and Judaism. He is the author of two monographs, Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010) and Judaism and the West: From Hermann Cohen to Joseph Soloveitchik […]
continue readingThey Were Right to Boo
Did you see Ted Cruz’s speech last night at the Republican National Convention? Maybe you heard about this morning — if you’re following the US Presidential race, that is. He had a prime spot and ended his speech with a few words that caused him to get resoundingly booed.
continue readingTales from the Secondary Classroom: Discovering Normative Vocabulary
By Kim Davis Kim earned her B.A. in Religious Studies and French from the University of Alabama in 2003. She went on to earn her Masters in French Linguistics and Literature in 2007 and a Masters in Secondary Language Pedagogy in 2010, both from UA. Kim now teaches French and Mythology at Tuscaloosa County High School. […]
continue readingRethinking Public Religion
Lately I’ve been getting emails about a summer school on the topic of public religion — specifically, on “how different forms of religion and religiosity meander through social realities today.” Like the problematic notion of material religion (critiqued here), the idea that religions can be either private and public is a troublesome one that we […]
continue reading10 Things I Learned at the REL Film Studios
Russell McCutcheon wrote a post on this blog recently in which he talked about the history and development of our filmmaking ventures here at REL, and as a student worker heavily involved in producing the films, I felt the need to respond to his post. For about two years now I’ve been planning, directing, filming, and editing […]
continue reading“A Horse is a Horse, of Course of Course”
In a review essay posted recently at the Boston Review — entitled “Holy Wars: Secularism and the Invention of Religion” — James Chappel looked at several recent books on religion and modernity. In that article he wrote as follows:
continue readingInaugural Department Chairs Workshop
For several years the American Academy of Religion has been the home for a group of public university department chairs, meeting annually to discuss shared challenges. But the 90 minute lunch meeting (such as last November’s) just isn’t enough time to discuss anything in any real detail.
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 […]
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