In the same spirit in which I welcome the study of the totalizing mythic endeavors, the univers imaginaires, of an Ogotemmêli or an Antonio Guzmán, I would hope, someday, to read a consonant treatment of the analogous enterprise of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics….* So wrote Jonathan Z. Smith, in his essay “Are Theological and Religious Studies Compatible?” (originally published in The CSSR Bulletin 26 [1997]: 60-61 and then reprinted in Chris Lehrich’s edited collection On Teaching Religion [2013: 75]). I […]
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.
When Are Religious Studies and Theology Different?
I know a lot of people who don’t sanction the old religious studies vs. theology distinction anymore — to them, the once distinguishable pursuits are better understood to bleed into one another, are mutually informing, are close cousins, or maybe even the very same thing and so to try to differentiate them is a sad testament to the authenticity of the people and the experiences under study. Scholarship, in this mode, is akin to dialogue, a mutually beneficial conversation, an […]
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It’s Time We Tackle This Directly
On Facebook the other day I read a post by a doctoral student in the US who, near done the degree, is venturing into a possible career outside the university; the post repeated a theme we’ve long heard in the humanities: we generally conceive of learning and research too narrowly and, by extension, graduate training ought to be re-calibrated to take into account the many other futures for which we might be preparing students. I admit that I found this […]
The Problem of First Person Authority
If you’ve paid attention to the news in the US over the past week or so, you’ll know that a bomber was loose in Austin, Texas, and that the suspect was cornered by authorities the other day and blew himself up. […]
It’s a busy week ahead
With spring break drawing to a close we’ve got a full week ahead of us: (1) Sarah Griswold will defend REL’s first M.A. thesis; it takes place Monday at 1:30 in Manly 210 — all faculty and grad students are invited, along with a small number of B.A. students who the faculty may have invited. (2) Our 5th annual research symposium takes place all Friday morning, upstairs at the University Club — all majors and minors are invited, along with […]
The REL Reading Group: Thinking Through Phenomenology
The following post from Emma Gibson, a student in our MA program, reflects on the recent meeting of the journal reading group, part of our Religion in Culture MA. So, what exactly is phenomenology? When I started my first semester in fall 2017 at the religious studies department, I got some interesting looks when I told everyone I was primarily interested in phenomenology. I learned quickly that phenomenology of religion and philosophical phenomenology are not the same thing. Perhaps this is […]
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Have a great spring break!
Whatever you plan to do this spring break, be sure to stick the landing. Have a fun and safe week. […]
What’s in a Name?
Sierra Lawson is an M.A. student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama; you can visit her website here. Advertisements have become increasingly common on social media platforms, sometimes with particularly chilling accuracy in regards to the consumer traits we reflect in daily conversations (I’m looking at you, Instagram). One recent advertisement has stood out to me, a product/service named “Brandless” claiming to be “Better Everything. For Everyone.” What does it mean to have a brand […]
Off to a conference in Atlanta
Yes, a group of REL faculty and students are hitting the open road tomorrow to head off to Atlanta, for our field’s annual regional conference. Game to find their names on the program…? And of course, we hope to post an update concerning how it all went — both the conference and the trip in the van. […]
Dr. Richard Newton is Coming to Tuscaloosa
The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama is extremely pleased to announce that Dr. Richard Newton will be joining our faculty to begin the 2018-19 academic year. Richard is currently Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, and received his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in 2009. His research explores how people create “scriptures” and their links to identity formation and the maintenance of cultural boundaries. His current project uses Alex Haley’s Roots as […]