By Nathan Loewen and Jackson Foster We have some questions. Given its conventional focus on topics and problems specific to Western Christianity, how might the philosophy of religion enter the 21st century, globalized world? How may researchers build bridges from those conventional approaches towards other topics and problems? Steven Dawson’s essay reviews some conventional approaches […]
continue readingThe Science of Religion–A Work in Progress
Prof. Richard Newton reports on a discussion topic from his graduate seminar on the history of religious studies. His students have been talking about the backstory of debates on definition as it pertains to religious studies. This week, students read a little bit from the nineteenth century Dutch scholars, Cornelis P. Tiele. In my History […]
continue readingRoad Trip
Early Monday morning my advisor, Russell McCutcheon, and I traveled down the road and across the state line to visit Mississippi State University. Since my acceptance into the Religious Studies department at the University of Alabama’s new M.A. program a few months ago, Russell and I have been discussing the possibility of having Dr. Mary […]
continue readingIdentity at the Crossroads of अवतार and Avatar: What’s Real about Hatsune Miku?
As a young lad in the 1984, I listened to the song by Rez Band that asked “Who’s Real Anymore?” Wendy Kaiser’s answer implicitly raises Holden Caulfield’s indictment of “phony” against the evangelists of her time. According to Kaiser, their televised personalities were not really Christian because their bottom line was money rather than real evangelism. […]
continue reading“What Do I Talk About At the Job Interview?”
I’ve written a number of blog posts over the years about the skills that students in the academic study of religion acquire. It’s worth thinking about because too many people seem focused only on the content of an undergrad degree, assuming that the thing that you study is the thing that you’ll do. It’s an […]
continue readingHistoric Artifact? An Open Letter to Department Search Committees from 1997
The following (co-written with my then co-editor at the now defunct Bulletin of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, the late Tim Murphy), first appeared as an open letter in our inaugural issue (26/1 [1997]) and was then reproduced as the appendix to chapter 6 of The Discipline of Religion (2003). Though […]
continue readingCome One, Come All?
Occasionally I see a job ad, in our field, that has an open rank, stating that people at different career stages/ranks are invited to apply, or an ad so general that I’m not sure what the search committee is wanting. These ads strike me as rather problematic, for a few reasons.
continue readingA Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 8: Diverse Approaches
This is an installment in an ongoing series on the American Academy of Religion’s recently released draft statement on research responsibilities. An index of the complete series (updated as each article is posted) can be found here. The seventh bullet point concerns the Academy’s common description of itself as being devoted to religious studies and […]
continue readingWhat’s the Point?
As discussions about the relevance of what we do in religious studies, and academia in general, have become more common lately, my own emphases have coalesced around the skills that the humanities help scholars (whether students or faculty or interested blog readers) develop. And that emphasis on skills is not limited to our work in […]
continue readingThe Rising Tide of Theory
Iliff School of Theology is looking for a new colleague in what they term Religion and Social Justice (find the ad here). Two words in that ad stood out for me:
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