Aronov Lecture

Newspaper "The World In Brief" with article "Department of religious studies hosts lecture Tuesday"

Named after the late Aaron Aronov — the founder of Aronov Realty for whom the department’s endowed chair in Judaic studies is also named —this annual lecture series was established in 2002. Its aim is to introduce to the University of Alabama community a nationally recognized scholar of religion who is capable of reflecting on issues of wide relevance to scholars from across the humanities and social sciences.

The annual Aronov Lecture is one of two lecture annual series hosted by the department, the other being the Day Lecture (along with our periodic Religion in Culture Lecture Series). The department also hosts a Religion in Culture Lunch Series (which often involves visiting guests meeting with REL students).

Of note is that REL’s Dr. Ramey collected the first decade’s worth of Aronov Lectures and it was published in 2015, as Writing Religion: The Case for the Critical Study of Religion, by the University of Alabama Press.

For information on these and other public events sponsored by the department — all of which are free of charge and open to the general public — please check our events page. To see videos of the Aronov Lectures since 2013, take a look at our Vimeo page.

Or visit the department’s page on Facebook for an album of past Aronov Lecture photos.

This Year’s Lecturer

To be announced.

Previous Lecturers

Andrea Jain
Department of Religious Studies, IUPUI
March 23, 2022

Annette Yoshiko Reed
New York University
October 21, 2020

Canceled due to COVID-19 protocols at The University of Alabama

Prof. Tim Jensen
University of Southern Denmark
April 9, 2019
#Aronov2018

Prof. Linell Cady
Arizona State University
April 11, 2018
#Aronov2018

Prof. Shaul Magid
Indiana University, Bloomington
April 2, 2015
#Aronov2015

Watch Prof. Magid’s lecture.

Prof. Richard King
University of Kent, UK
March 4, 2014

Prof. Cary Nelson
University of Illinois
March 26, 2013

Watch Prof. Nelson’s lecture

Prof. Ann Pellegrini
New York University
February 16, 2012

Prof. Aaron Hughes
University at Buffalo, SUNY
March 29, 2011

Dr. Nathan Katz
Florida International University
November 17, 2009

Prof. Bruce Lincoln
University of Chicago

Prof. Arjun Appadurai
The New School, New York City

Prof. Tomoko Masuzawa
University of Michigan

Prof. Amy-Jill Levine
Vanderbilt University

Prof. Judith Plaskow
Manhattan College

Prof. Jonathan Z. Smith
University of Chicago

Prof. Martin Jaffee
University of Washington