Below is the content (complete with links) of an email sent to all UA faculty and staff on Tuesday, July 20, 2021, discussing the university’s expectations around UA’s return to classes in the Fall 2021 semester. REL faculty and staff have taken the risks of COVID-19 very seriously since early in 2020 and we hope that all students, as they return to campus, comply with the various requirements and recommendations outlined below. ___________________________ The University of Alabama System released today […]
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.
Third Time’s the Charm
Prof. Steve Jacobs, above, in April of 2017 at the annual Arts & Science reception at the University Club, for newly promoted faculty — celebrating his promotion that year to Full Professor. Since starting full-time at UA in 2001 (my “start date” is easy to remember: 1/1/01), past A&S Dean Robert Olin and current Dean Joseph Messina have accorded me three one-semester sabbatical research leaves to pursue avenues of research in my areas of academic specialization: the Holocaust of World […]
Tip of the Iceberg
The common English phrasing “religious expression” carries with it a set of assumptions about what scholars of religion study as well as how and why they study it, though the term is today so widespread that I doubt many think much about what it entails. […]
The Inquisition’s Baggage
Christopher Hurt is an REL alum who works in Los Angeles. He is best known for his work with the rock ‘n’ roll group, Jamestown Pagans. Have you ever seen Inquisición (film, 1977)? If you’re a lover of period-piece horror movies, like I am, then you’ll want to check it out. Mondo Macabro has a Blu-ray release that is standout. The subject matter calls to mind this data… Several years into his papacy John Paul II initiated a commission to […]
Fulbright Scholar Joining REL for 2021-22
We’re very pleased to announce that Dr. Oleg Kyselov, a senior researcher at the H. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy in Ukraine, will be joining REL as a Fulbright Scholar from October until June. His own teaching covers a broad area, including the sociology and geography of religion along with a variety of topics in the history of religions, globalization, and methodologies. Among his most recent publications are: “Interaction Between Religion and Science: Comprehension of Ukrainian Scientific Atheists” in Studia […]
What’s My Line…?
A little while back, we asked our first year M.A. students to tell us what they were working on — you know, what they were reading, something about their classes, or other things that they were doing that were related to their degree. It was at the height of the pandemic here in the US, so, whether in their bubbles or out in the fresh air with classmates, they got to work and did a little filming, sending us the […]
Announcing the RELdl
There’s some renovations starting to happen in REL this summer — we’re transforming the Department library into an REL digital lab (RELdl) that Prof. Jeri Wieringa (who joined REL a year ago and who works directly in this area) will direct and under whose auspices all digital work in REL can take place. […]
New MA Students Coming to REL
We’re very pleased to announce that we have three incoming MA students, all beginning Fall 2021, and who are joining 10 students already in the program. Those new students are (top left, going counterclockwise): Katie Johnson, Ciara Eichhorst, and Phoebe Duke-Mosier; you can learn more about their interests and backgrounds by visiting our grad student directory. We’re also very pleased that all 12 of the full-time students in our graduate program will each be fully funded for 2021-22, from receiving […]
Doing Theory
Often in the study of religion you’ll hear people saying things like “I don’t do theory” (yes, there’s often an emphasis on the verb, akin to saying “I don’t do [insert something with which you disagree or dislike]) or maybe you’ll come across a conversation on when to introduce theory to undergraduate students — right from their first course or, fearing that will alienate them from the field, only doing so later, “once they’ve already got the basics,” as some […]
Can We Analyze Trumpism as a Millenarian Movement?
Elizabeth Tagg is a graduating senior in the Department of Religious Studies, writing a thesis on apocalyptic rhetoric in the age of Trump. Donald Trump built his reputation as a political outsider who could “drain the swamp,” fix a broken system, and make America great again. Indeed, in his 2016 RNC speech, he declared that “[he] alone could fix it.” Many believed him, and many still do. For example, when the pandemic and instructions to quarantine were in full swing, […]
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