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Report from the Public Universities Chairs Workshop

May 10, 2016

Dr. Kevin Schilbrack (pictured above, right) is a professor of Religious Studies and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University. He was recently at the University of Alabama for the inaugural workshop for public university Religious Studies department chairs and offers the following report. Like many other department chairs, I suspect, I became chair after years of teaching, writing, and generally being collegial – but I received little or no training on how to be […]

Writing Well: An Incomplete Set of Guidelines

April 28, 2016

It’s that time of the semester: final essays. But before you mash the print button or send that paper to your professor, you should take a quick look at this writing advice from Prof. Matthew Bagger. Prof. Bagger gave these tips to his REL 360 course but they are helpful for any papers you may have coming due this semester. “If there’s anything [God] hates, it is… oozy writing.” –William James (1905) A good persuasive essay presents a cogent and compelling […]

Honors Day 2016

April 28, 2016

At this year’s annual Honor’s Day, we passed the GoPro around to see what kind of footage we could get. Take a look! Honors Day ’16 from UA Religious Studies. […]

Inaugural Department Chairs Workshop

April 23, 2016

For several years the American Academy of Religion has been the home for a group of public university department chairs, meeting annually to discuss shared challenges. But the 90 minute lunch meeting (such as last November’s) just isn’t enough time to discuss anything in any real detail. […]

The “News” Askew

April 22, 2016

Image from Creative Commons: Public Domain The following is cross-posted from RELephantUA, the class blog for the REL Captsone Seminar. Be sure to check their blog for more great posts studying religion in culture. By Chris Beacham Yesterday afternoon, a swarm of protesters marched to the steps of the United States capitol to protest the undue influence of money in politics and corporate lobbying. The group peacefully approached the capitol building, and many were quickly arrested, including a journalist for the popular show “The Young […]

A Tired Old Joke

April 20, 2016

The following is cross-posted from RELephantUA, the class blog for the REL Captsone Seminar. Be sure to check their blog for more great posts studying religion in culture. By Liz Long In TV, the same jokes have a habit of popping up over and over again in different shows. Someone falls in love with their work partner. Someone has two dates to the same event. Everyone’s family is dysfunctional. They’re tiring, boring plots that we’ve seen several times before on […]

Another Successful Honors Day

April 18, 2016

Last Friday, April 8th, was Honors Day here at the University. It’s a day when classes are dismissed so that departments can recognize and celebrate their students. In typical fashion, REL hosted an Honors Day banquet, back here on the balconies of Manly for the first time in a couple years. Profs, parents, and students gathered together to celebrate the student’s achievements while chowing down on some delicious catfish of course. […]

4 Tips For Applying to Graduate School from Dr. Simmons

April 15, 2016

On Monday, April 13th, the Religious Studies Student Association hosted an event where undergraduates gleaned insights about the ins and outs of applying to graduate school from the department’s very own Dr. Micheal Altman, Dr. Matthew Bagger, and Dr. Vaia Touna! In case you missed the event, Dr. Merinda Simmons has listed some advice of her own below! […]

REL 360 Movie Night: Killer of Sheep

April 13, 2016

Rel 360–our one credit hour course–is presenting its last movie of the semester, concluding the series on Democracy, Race, and Religion by showing the 1977 film Killer of Sheep. Selected by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the “100 Essential Films” of all time, Killer of Sheep focuses on the life of Stan, a dreamer trapped in the mind-numbing job of working at a slaughterhouse in L.A. The film shows bleak moments of happiness in Stan’s life, […]

Getting to Know RSSA

March 31, 2016

The REL film crew just caught up with the officers of the Religious Studies Student Association to learn what the club is all about. Watch the video to see what they had to say–trust us, you don’t want to miss out on the fun events going on around here! RSSA Student Video from UA Religious Studies. […]

Studying Religion in Culture

Ongoing Discussions at the University of Alabama

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