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. What should be clear from my previous comments is that I don’t think the draft document simply needs […]
continue readingJust Look at That Parking Lot
Catie Stewart is a sophomore at the University of Alabama from Madison, Mississippi. She is double majoring in English and Religious Studies and minoring in Psychology. This post was originally written for Dr. Rollens’ course, REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. I recently watched the film A Serious Man for REL 360, and as the plot unfolded, […]
continue reading“Brotherhood, Peace, and Let Loose with their Money”
With the Christian holiday season upon us, and the inevitable media coverage of the so-called “war on Christmas,” it’s worth remembering Lynch v. Donnelly (465 U.S. 668) — a US Supreme Court case from 1984 in which the city of Pawtucket, RI, was sued over the annual nativity scene that it erected, at (admittedly minimal) […]
continue readingThe Category Religion — Twenty Years Later
I’ve got a review essay coming out in 2015 in Numen (issue 62/1) that I just proofed. It’s on recent works concerned with the category religion. It was interesting to write, since it’s been twenty years since I wrote a similar essay on the category religion in scholarship.
continue readingThe Wonderment of This Taxonomy
I’ve been putting quotation marks around the word religion for a long time now — some people dismiss them as affectations, others call them scare quotes.
continue readingThe Authentic Dream Cafe
By Jared Powell Jared Powell is a junior from Canton, Mississippi majoring in English and Religious Studies. A few months ago I wrote a post relating an episode of Seinfeld to issues of identity that are commonly discussed in our classes. After letting the initial fame and grandeur of my first post wear off, I decided that more […]
continue readingOut of Bounds
The blokes (that’s the right word, no?) over at The Religious Studies Project posted a link earlier today to an article entitled “The Case Against Mix-and-Match Spirituality” — an article, summarizing a recent session at The Aspen Ideas Festival, that nicely demonstrates how easily (and often) scholars adopt a stance from within the groups they […]
continue readingSelf-Help Jesus in America
By Allie Rash Allie Rash is a rising senior double majoring in Mathematics and Religious Studies. She hails from Franklin, TN, but calls North Carolina and Kansas home as well. This Spring Allie completed an independent study with Prof. Mike Altman on ideas of self-help in American Protestantism. In this post she reviews the final […]
continue readingPraxising What We Preach: Kickball and the Communitas of an Academic Department
Why do we teach our students social theory? Why teach them about collective effervescence, habitus, and discourse? I think we do it because we find these theories to be useful tools for analyzing and explaining the world around us. But often, I think, we academics are wont to apply these same theories to our more […]
continue reading“I’ve Seen Things…”
This semester I taught our senior seminar, required of all majors and minors before they graduate from the department. It was on the topic of tradition. Well, not really. It was on the topic of the discourse on tradition. That’s a difference that matters, I think.
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