As I remarked to someone on Facebook some years ago, all it takes is a slight tweak in some of our cherished texts in the study of religion to make plain how problematic the work actually is — i.e., how deeply embedded the argument is in a set of presumptions about the world that likely need to be examined instead of simply assumed. Case in point: consider replacing the words “sacred” and “profane” as follows in this famous passage: If […]
Month: August 2015
You Get a Magnet?
During the summer we mailed to all REL grads for whom we have a reliable address — over 300 people were on that last, all graduating from our Department over the past 45 years or so. And we included a fridge magnet, made from a photo that REL grad Andie Alexander took last year, on her balcony in Boulder, CO, where she is doing her M.A. in Religious Studies. Current students — REL majors/minors and Judaic Studies minors — drop […]
A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 12: Highest Standards
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 thirteenth and final item included in the draft document reads as follows: At this point in the series there’s not really all that much left to say. For in my reading, there’s too little specificity to the document’s claims to assist us […]
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And Isn’t It Ironic? Don’t You Think?
Tomorrow the last post in my series examining the American Academy of Religion‘s recent draft statement on research responsibilities hits the web (go here to see all the posts in the series). I became aware of the document by happening upon a Facebook post about a month ago. […]
A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 11: Research Assistants
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 second to the last item on the draft document is the only one that concerns our work with students — odd, if you think about it, since much of teaching concerns preparing them to be researchers themselves, so you’d think that a […]
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Can’t Tell a Player Without a Program
No kidding: I’ve had students in the past talk to me about their classes and who were not only unsure what their prof’s name was but they didn’t even know what s/he looked like. In such cases, I find it’s a safe opener just to ask: “Well…, did he have a beard…?” We’re problem-solvers in REL — so that’s why we have a new showcase, on the second floor of Manly Hall, telling you who the players are, as well […]
A Response to “Responsible Research Practices,” Part 10: Peer Review
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. As with the eighth and ninth points of the draft document, the tenth also strikes me as unproductively redundant: For while the previous two were both concerned with scholars talking plainly to wide audiences, this bullet point focuses on that too, but narrows […]
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