Japan – Studying Religion in Culture

Identity at the Crossroads of अवतार and Avatar: What’s Real about Hatsune Miku?

September 1, 2017 by Nathan Loewen

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. Intellectual discussions about real versus not-real begin long before the 1980s. These discussions track along different lines, too. Questions concerning claims about reality have been […]

Why Do They Touch the Phallus? Or, Diverging Theories of Ritual

September 27, 2016 by Suma Ikeuchi

One night during my fieldwork among Brazilian migrant communities in Japan, I was invited to a dinner at Daniel’s apartment. He and his girlfriend frequented a local Brazilian evangelical church that I was studying. After the dinner, they started talking about the “strange festival” in Komaki, a city one-hour drive away from where they lived. The festival took place the previous week (on March 15 2014) and they came across its footage online. The Hōnen Festival at Tagata Shrine is best known […]

Backstory: Prof. Suma Ikeuchi

September 1, 2016 by admin

“Backstory” is a series that asks the REL Faculty to tell us a little bit about themselves, to explore how they became interested in the academic study of religion and their own specialty, elaborating on their current work both within and outside the University. […]

Prof. Ikeuchi to Screen Her Research

July 6, 2016 by Michael Altman

Our newest addition to the REL faculty, Prof. Suma Ikeuchi will screen her ethnographic film “In Leila’s Room” at the 2016 Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival. Here’s a brief description of the film: A young Brazilian migrant woman, Leila, runs a small make-up salon in her apartment in Toyota City, Japan. Most of her clients are, like herself, Brazilians of Japanese descent who have return migrated to the land of their ancestors. Her small salon is also a […]

New Hire in REL

February 12, 2016 by Russell McCutcheon

We’re extremely pleased to announce that, as of August 2016, we will have another new colleague in REL. Suma Ikeuchi is currently a doctoral candidate at Emory University, where she will receive her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology in May 2016. She also has an M.A. in Anthropology from Brandeis University and a B.A. in both History and Anthropology from Hokkaido University, Japan. […]

An Interview with Dr. Jolyon Thomas Part 2

November 5, 2015 by admin

The conclusion to our interview with Dr. Jolyon Thomas, our third Day Lecturer, is now ready! Don’t miss this final installment, where he discusses his current projects and gives insight on where he feels the field of religious studies in pop. culture is going. A Few Moments with Jolyon Thomas Part 2 from UA Religious Studies. If you missed the first part of the interview, you can catch it here. Stay tuned for Dr. Thomas’ Day Lecture, coming soon! […]

An Interview with Dr. Jolyon Thomas Part 1

November 4, 2015 by admin

Last month the REL film crew met up for a quick chat with Dr. Jolyon Thomas, the third speaker in our annual Day Lecture. The video from this interview is now up and ready to go, so be sure to check it out and learn more about Dr. Thomas’s background, his career, and how his interest in Japanese pop culture began! A Few Moments with Jolyon Thomas from UA Religious Studies. Ready for Part 2? You can find it here. Stay tuned for […]

A New Year’s Coincidence?

December 31, 2013 by Russell McCutcheon

Did you know that January 1st is also the beginning of the new year in Japanese Shinto, marked by celebrating the holiday known as Gantan-sai? Calendrical coincidence? Hardly. […]

Immediate Relativism

December 5, 2013 by admin

by Hannah Etchison Hannah Etchison, a graduating senior majoring in Religious Studies with a minor in Asian Studies, spent six weeks of this fall in India, staying primarily at a monastery where she learned from the women staying there and helped them with their English. Don’t miss her previous posts about her experiences (Hannah Goes to India 1, Hannah Goes to India 2, iPhones, Monks and the Images We Construct). Indian food is way better than Japanese food. This Buddhist temple smells exactly […]

Please (Don’t) Take One

October 17, 2013 by Russell McCutcheon

In 2005 I had the good fortune to attend a conference in Japan. Out exploring a little corner of the city one afternoon, I crossed one of those stereotypically busy Tokyo intersections that you sometimes see in the movies — me, my friend Willi, and hundreds of other people — and, on the side we were all heading toward, I spied two clean-cut, blond-haired young white guys in white shirts, black pants, and conservative ties, standing side-by-side and handing out […]

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