Month: February 2015


Excuse Me, You Have Something on Your Forehead

Sarah Griswold is a junior double majoring in Mathematics and Religious Studies. She spends her “free time” analyzing her favorite shows on Netflix, which of course winds up ruining them. To get you started for some Ash Wednesday talk, enjoy some GloZell: Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten Season – the days leading up to Easter, meant to symbolize Jesus’s 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. By now, you probably have seen people with ashes on their […]

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Our Interpretive Introductory Courses

Mark Ortiz is a senior double-majoring in Religious Studies and New College with a depth study in Political Ecology. He is especially interested in climate politics and that bundle of things and stuff we call “nature.” As part of an independent study this semester, I’ve been very busy chatting to professors in the department about their approaches to teaching the introductory course in our discipline. I found this assignment especially timely, as I am slated to begin a graduate program […]

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13th Annual Aronov Lecture with Dr. Shaul Magid

Dr. Shaul Magid of Indiana University, Bloomington, this year’s Aronov Lecturer. Named after the late Aaron Aronov–the founder of Aronov Realty for whom the Department’s endowed chair in Judaic studies is also named–the annual Aronov Lecture series was established in 2002.  This year’s event will feature Dr. Shaul Magid (Indiana University, Bloomington) presenting his lecture “After Multiculturalism: Postethnicity and the Future of Judaism in America.” […]

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Terrorism or Trauma?

Alyssa MacDougall, who earned an undergraduate degree in the study of religion and philosophy at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, is now a master’s student in media studies at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Her thesis research is focused on the effects of framing of Muslims in the western media. If you’re interested in her musings about her two cats, religion, media and graduate life, you can find her on twitter under the handle @alyssamacd. […]

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Classifying Classification in the Study of Religion

So ends the late Charles J. Adams‘s classic entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica on the topic of “Classification of Religions.” Or consider the Encyclopedia of Religion‘s own entry on the same topic (not updated in the second edition), this time written by the late Harry B. Partin — which concludes as follows: […]

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Carry On, They’re Just Misfits

Did you catch this Canadian news story today? I’ve heard it discussed on the radio all morning, during each half hour news update, and what’s curious is how National Public Radio’s report just phrased it: according to investigators, it was the plan of “a group of murderous misfits, not Islamic terrorists,” as the newsreader just said. […]

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A New Series Kicks Off: Grad Tales Extra

Zac Parker graduated with a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Alabama in 2011. Here he helps us kick off our new, ongoing series, Grad Tales Extra, in which grads not able to join us on campus, to discuss the relevance of their degree, can drop us a line instead, to update us on what they’ve done since leaving Manly Hall. During the year following graduation, I spent many months traveling, camping, and backpacking around the country, taking […]

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