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.
People often enter the academic study of religion because of questions and curiosities
that we have about the world around us. Cultivating these curiositiescan lead to new questions about how groups and texts work. […]
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REL MA student Trevor Linn observed the 2023 American Examples public humanities workshop. Here’s what he found! […]
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Understanding the various systems that organize the world is one outcome of a major inReligious Studies. Though it was not his first expectation, that is exactly what Justin Nelson (RELmajor who graduated in 2007) credits for contributing to various successes he has experienced.Last month, Justin returned to campus for Grad Tales, a department event that features alumnisharing with students their journey from graduation to wherever they are now. It is anencouraging event to attend during undergrad as most, if not […]
Casey A’Hearn is an REL MA student who uses Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology to understand Joseph Smith Jr.’s First Vision.
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by Marguerite Mayhall*, Kean University. The carved relief lintel showing Lady Xok performing a bloodletting ritual for her husband Shield Jaguar’s accession to the throne of the Maya site of Yaxchilan is a startling image (top left image, Lintel 24). Xok, dressed in an elaborate huipil, or woven dress, kneels while she draws a barbed rope through her tongue and piles it in a bowl in front of her. Her husband, the king-to-be, stands over her, holding a torch and […]
We are glad to have students returning to classes this week after a busy summer for everyone. We have a new department chair and an exciting group of incoming MA students. Check out our Welcome Back video to see some of the changes that we have made to get ready for Fall 2023. We have had a productive summer beyond those changes. As a faculty, we have finished 6 books, more than 20 book chapters, 4 journal articles, and international […]
Kim Davis is a 2003 graduate of REL. She moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2020 and became an avid explorer, hiker, and trail runner much to the surprise of everyone who knows her. She invites everyone to come experience the Land of Enchantment. When I moved from Alabama to New Mexico, I became an aficionado of New Mexican chile. New Mexican chile is not the meat and beans stew that is prepared in the Southeast, but rather it […]
Taylor Swift’s concert tour has generated significant attention with heartwarming stories of supportive parents, marriage proposals, and the like, along with lots of memes. One author compared the experience with group singing in worship settings, calling the concert “The Church of Taylor Swift”. The post certainly touches on an important element within both Taylor Swift concerts and congregational worship, the experience of group singing. However, thinking critically about who creates the comparison, based on what assumptions, and for what ends […]
by Madeline Brodbeck, who is a junior majoring in Religious Studies and Political Science. While participating in an icebreaker last semester, we were asked to share our major with a small group of classmates. When it came to be my turn, I informed the group that I was double majoring in political science and religious studies. My classmates were very interested to learn more about my religious studies major. One classmate responded, “You don’t look like a religious studies major.” […]
Read More from What do you mean, “I don’t look like a religious studies major”?
Describing ideas and movements as religious can promote or diminish the ideas or movements, depending on how the speaker frames the religious language according to their interests. […]