As someone familiar with the work of our Department. Dr. Roshan Abraham knows that we appreciate the complexities of identification. Join Prof. Newton as he gets to know a bit about our 2019 Day Lecturer in the interview below. See part 1 here. […]
Read More from Dr. Roshan Abraham: Not-So-Secret Scholarly Identities
Dr. Roshan Abraham is our 2019 Day Lecturer. Prof. Newton was able to chat with him to learn a little bit more about his training and his scholarship. We’ve heard you’ll be talking about the Bible and comics. Comics often involve origin stories. What’s your scholarly origin story? I don’t really have a simple story about my academic training; I got to the study of religion through a very circuitous route. I’ll try to keep it brief. I did my […]
Read More from Dr. Roshan Abraham: A Day Lecturer’s Origin Story
Years ago, before I had kids, I was chitchatting with an acquaintance. I cannot recall what we were actually talking about. The memory is remarkable to me because these days I am rarely alone enough to enjoy a leisurely adult conversation. I can’t believe now how much I took such moments for granted back then. Anyway, in the midst of the conversation, the acquaintance’s young daughter came out of a building to meet her mother. They can’t have been apart […]
Read More from Family Resemblance and the Social Risks of Guess Who
The first day of class can be a bit nerve-racking, even for profs. One might think that profs have it easy at the start of the semester, but we all know the importance of first impressions. And for myself, there can be a lot of anxiety around those initial activities. How much of the syllabus should we read? I don’t want to bore anyone, but I don’t want students starting out lost. Do we dive right into content? The semester […]
Summer is here, and it’s time for a little rest, relaxation, and #RELResearch. And while we won’t be posting too much new content here on the blog, be on the look out each Tuesday and Thursday for some blasts from the past. We’ll be featuring some of your favorite throwback posts on social media, so be sure to follow us on Facebook (@RELatUA), Twitter (@StudyReligion), and Instagram (@StudyReligion). […]
In the Department of Religious Studies, we train students in the nuance of comparison and sophisticated understandings of classification. What better test could we offer at the end of the semester than the 11th Annual Manly Cup Competitive UNO Tournament. […]
Read More from The One Game to Rule Them All: The 2019 Manly Cup Recap
Dr. Steven L. Jacobs is Professor and Aaron Aronov Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies at The University of Alabama. His primary research foci are in Biblical Studies, translation and interpretation, including the Dead Sea Scrolls; as well as Holocaust and Genocide Studies. In the December 14, 2018 issue of The Chronicle Review, Brian Leiter of the University of Chicago penned a piece entitled “Go Ahead, Cite the Nazi” (B2).* His unnecessarily provocative argument as summarized by his disingenuous solution— “cite […]
Matthew McCullough, an MA student in Prof. Ramey’s REL501 course, teases out the stakes of classifying an act as a tradition. This post originally appeared on the REL 501 Religious Studies & Social Theory: Foundations course blog. So, are traditions really an “idiot thing,” as Rick declares? Not quite. As we’ve seen in the clip above, tradition, appearing in various forms, is a device that’s used when something is at stake. There is no real tradition of science projects being done by […]
Read More from Well Scientifically… Traditions are an Idiot Thing
Caity Bell, a student in Prof. Ramey REL501 course, ponders the invention of tradition. This post originally appeared on the REL 501 Religious Studies & Social Theory: Foundations course blog. The holiday season is fast upon us and with it a substantial rise in commercials meant to tug upon consumers’ heartstrings, to invoke that special sense of holiday cheer that drives us, no doubt, to purchase more products than we have year-round. If you don’t run from the room […]
Read More from Heineken Beer Dismantles the Traditional Family
If Manly Hall is a little quieter in Mid-November, trust that the faculty are keeping busy. Many in our Department will be headed to the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion (AAR, the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), and the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR). And as you can see, the Department will be well represented on the program. Prof. Nathan Loewen continues to serve on the executive committee of the International Development and […]
Read More from Studying Religion in Culture in Denver–AAR, SBL, and NAASR 2018!