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 connections could be made from the sitcom and the academic study of religion, particularly with regards to authenticity. […]
Month: September 2014
Authenticity and the Nation-State, Or Why Thai Food is a Lot Like ISIS
We love Thai food around here. But how do you know the food on your plate is actually Thai? What makes it Thai? The sign in the restaurant window? The “Thai tea?” What is “authentic Thai food?” Well, the government of Thailand is sick and tired of your sad excuses for Thai food and they have a plan to ensure you never settle for fake Thai food again. It’s not just a plan, it’s a robot. […]
Read More from Authenticity and the Nation-State, Or Why Thai Food is a Lot Like ISIS
Betty to the Rescue
Each Monday a new episode from the adventures of the Praxis Squad will be posted. […]
Why is this News?
Did you catch this story making the rounds on social media? […]
A Fine Place to Start
By Joe Kimbrough Joe Kimbrough graduated from the Department of Religious Studies in 2008. He went on to pursue graduate study in Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama, while maintaining his interests in the historical divisions between church and academy. You can read some of his other blog posts here. Recently, I sought a diversion after working some overtime, so I stopped at the local Barnes & Noble. Such a decision was popular that evening since the store […]
Undead Zombie Tweets: Everything You Missed From Dr. Kelly Baker’s 2014 Day Lecture in Tweets and GIFs
Follow @StudyReligion // Last night REL hosted the second annual Zachary Daniel Day Memorial Lecture. Dr. Kelly J. Baker delivered an excellent presentation entitled, “”‘They’re coming to get you, Barbara!’: Zombie Apocalypses in American Religions.” If you missed the lecture or if you just want to revisit the details of the talk check out these tweets courtesy of our Twitter team. […]
It Ain’t Sexy But….
We have Kelly Baker on campus, here to give the second annual Day Lecture. On the ride to Tuscaloosa form the Birmingham airport the other day, we got talking about the issue of contingent faculty in academia (a topic on which she has blogged) or, more specifically, about how the issue plays out in the academic study of religion. We talked about the American Academy of Religion’s current forays into the issue (e.g., a task force she is herself involved […]
It’s All Relative
Relativism, and criticisms of it — “Oh, you’re a relativist!” — strike me as similar to claims of reductionism: the problem isn’t (as critics of reductionism claim) that one reduces one’s object of study to something other than what it already is, but that someone else reduces it to something different than what you want to boil it down to. That not a lot of so-called religious people are walking around spontaneously reporting that they’ve experienced a hierophany of a […]
Top Ten Tips for Academic Blogging
REL 360 is our brand new, one-credit course entitled “Popular Culture/Public Humanities,” and organized by Prof. Rollens. Students who take this course watch a series of movies, attend a public lecture, and then have the opportunity to discuss the material together with faculty. They write short responses to their favorite events, one of which will eventually be published on our department’s blog. To introduce the students to the phenomenon of academic blogging, their first assignment was to examine other posts on the department […]
Zombie Live Tweets Are Not a Contradiction in Terms
See you at tomorrow’s #Day2014 lecture on religion in popular culture (in Gorgas Library 205)? If not, then we’ll be live tweeting @StudyReligion, starting around 7 pm (central time). Tune in and see what the zombie apocalypse is all about. Follow @StudyReligion Tweet #DAY2014 […]
Read More from Zombie Live Tweets Are Not a Contradiction in Terms