July 2015 – Studying Religion in Culture

A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 9: Broader Public

July 31, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

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. Much like the earlier post on doing human subjects research, we find a truism enshrined in the draft document’s eighth bullet point (at least in the opening clause; I include the ninth also since it too is related): I’m not sure if there […]

Is Your Humanities Degree Relevant?

July 30, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

Are the Humanities relevant? Do you use Slack? Do you know what Stewart Butterfield’s (its founder) undergrad and grad degrees were in? If the following excerpt from this article makes you interested…. …, then you should read it. […]

A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 8: Diverse Approaches

July 29, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

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 theology, for it reads as follows: But what exactly are these guiding principles that rule scholarship in or out — in a word, what makes […]

A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 7: Methodological Pluralism

July 27, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

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. Hanabusa Itchō‘s (d. 1724) print of the well-known parable of the blindmen and the elephant seemed to me a fitting image to open this commentary on the sixth bullet point in this document. It reads: I won’t quibble as to why the word […]

A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 6: Irrevocable Commitments

July 24, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

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. This is, at least to me, perhaps the most troubling of all the bullet points in the document, because of the way it fails to take a stand despite providing the impression of taking a very strong one. As with other portions of […]

A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 5: Sources and Interpretations

July 22, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

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 some editing or a few words added to it, in order to make it work. Instead, I think the entire exercise needs to be rethought, […]

A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 4: Research on Human Subjects

July 20, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

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 previous post ended by citing the fourth of Bruce Lincoln’s “Theses on Method” — specifically, his call for scholars always to contextual, historicize, what they study by asking “who speaks here?” and “to what audience?” Among my difficulties with the AAR’s draft […]

A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 3: Do No Harm

July 17, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

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 previous post — concerned with a group of Academy members who, I argued, are necessarily absent from the draft statement on responsibilities (why necessarily? If they were explicitly acknowledged it would likely undermine our ability, as an Academy, to advocate for academic […]

The Effects of Stained Glass: Rose-Tinted Views of Antebellum Life

July 16, 2015 by admin

Ben Flax graduated from UA in 2014 with a double major in History and Religious Studies. He is interested in the public memory of American slavery and the Confederacy. Ben now lives in Cambrige, MA, where he works as an Administrative and Development Associate for MIT Hillel. As a flag outside the South Carolina legislature, seen by many to be a symbol of hate and violence, remained at full staff not long ago while other banners in the vicinity were lowered, two […]

A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 2: Academic Freedom

July 15, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

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 first of the thirteen bullet points that comprise the main part of the draft document reads as follows: Should we follow Marx, then we’d make the relatively uncontroversial prediction that every institution contains contradictions that, if unaddressed, threaten its existence as a […]

Studying Religion in Culture

Ongoing Discussions at the University of Alabama

Month: July 2015