by Hannah Etchison Hannah Etchison, a graduating senior majoring in Religious Studies with a minor in Asian Studies, spent six weeks of this fall in India, staying primarily at a monastery where she will learn from the women and help them with their English. This is her third post about that experience. See her first and second posts. Sogyal* struck up a conversation with me quickly. I had mentioned to another guest at the World Buddhist Centre that I was an […]
Category: Religion in Culture
Posts in this category discuss how those aspects of culture known as religion can be studied in a way comparable to all other cultural practices.
So, What Are You Doin’ These Days?
Check out this article, from the University of Virginia, which surveyed grads over the past decade with regard to: 1) what their undergraduate major was and 2) what career they went into. Above is a screen shot (from their interactive site) of what careers grads originating in what they group together as Philosophy & Religious Studies have gone into. A goal for our Department this year is to start tracking grads in much the same way — the graphic looks […]
Heading to a Conference
Yes, it’s that time of year again — some members of the Department are off to attend annual conferences (in Baltimore this year). You’ll find them in sessions, running between sessions to get to a session, presenting their research at a session, or lost in the sea of humanity (pictured above) in the book display killing time between sessions. Did you catch the interviews from last year’s annual meetings in Chicago? We’ll be filming some more this year but until […]
ar·ti·facts is at it again!
ar·ti·facts is back! We know you’ve been missing it. Watch the latest installment to learn a little more about Prof. Finnegan, and stay tuned for more… ar·ti·facts: On Food and Identity with Prof. Eleanor Finnegan from UA Religious Studies. […]
Putting a Humanities Degree to Work
“That class [Modern Atheism] introduced a profound change in Hicks’ life. She began to listen to those with different views than her own, began to dialogue, and, finally, began to see. ‘It just all sort of clicked for me,’ she said. ‘You walk past people—the kinds of people that you don’t even see a lot of the time, people who are under-represented in our culture.’” […]
What is the Academic Study of Religion?: A Graduate’s Perspective
Tim Davis earned his B.A. in Religious Studies and Spanish in 2006. He went on to earn his J.D. at UA’s School of Law. He is now practices law, with an emphasis in civil litigation, in St. Clair County, AL. Tim wrote this piece for new REL students shortly before graduating. As an entering freshman at The University of Alabama I knew that my older sister, a junior at the time, was a Religious Studies major but I had no […]
Read More from What is the Academic Study of Religion?: A Graduate’s Perspective
Of Practicing and Preaching
Are you familiar with the work of the Christian theologian John Howard Yoder (d. 1997)? I remember reading his classic The Politics of Jesus long ago, in a galaxy far far away from the academic study of religion. A recent New York Times article (Oct. 11, 2013), entitled, “A Theologian’s Influence, and Stained Past, Live On,” opened as follows: […]
A Grad’s Reflections
Rearview Mirror with Justin Nelson from UA Religious Studies. Hear what REL Grad Justin Nelson as to say about his undergraduate degree… […]
“Let Us Bow Our Heads…”
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for why public meetings, such as the Greece, NY, town council pictured above, ought either to be allowed or disallowed from opening with prayer. What do you think? Learn some background on the case here. See item C on an agenda from one of Greece NY’s recent town meeting here (PDF). Interested in a report on how the arguments before the court went…? (Photo from the LA Times‘ editorial on the case.) […]
Rearview Mirror, Take Two…
“You need to be here.” from UA Religious Studies. Have you seen our latest video of grads reflecting on their undergraduate degree? See what they have to say. Dad came along, too… […]