Relativism, and criticisms of it — “Oh, you’re a relativist!” — strike me as similar to claims of reductionism: the problem isn’t (as critics of reductionism claim) that one reduces one’s object of study to something other than what it already is, but that someone else reduces it to something different than what you want to boil it down to. That not a lot of so-called religious people are walking around spontaneously reporting that they’ve experienced a hierophany of a […]
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.
Top Ten Tips for Academic Blogging
REL 360 is our brand new, one-credit course entitled “Popular Culture/Public Humanities,” and organized by Prof. Rollens. Students who take this course watch a series of movies, attend a public lecture, and then have the opportunity to discuss the material together with faculty. They write short responses to their favorite events, one of which will eventually be published on our department’s blog. To introduce the students to the phenomenon of academic blogging, their first assignment was to examine other posts on the department […]
Zombie Live Tweets Are Not a Contradiction in Terms
See you at tomorrow’s #Day2014 lecture on religion in popular culture (in Gorgas Library 205)? If not, then we’ll be live tweeting @StudyReligion, starting around 7 pm (central time). Tune in and see what the zombie apocalypse is all about. Follow @StudyReligion Tweet #DAY2014 […]
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A Good Book with Prof. Simmons
The latest video in our newest series, A Good Book, is now on Vimeo. This episode features Prof. Merinda Simmons discussing the influence of Judith Butler’s book Gender Trouble. A Good Book with Prof. Simmons from UA Religious Studies. […]
Run, Don’t Walk, to #Day2014
Zombie apocalypses are no laughing matter. Learn more about the annual Day Lecture here. Learn more about this year’s lecturer here. Follow the live tweets this Tuesday at 7 pm @StudyReligion […]
Nowhere to Run To, Baby
When the zombie apocalypse comes, where are you going to go? Get more helpful tips Tuesday night at #Day2014 Learn more about the annual Day Lecture here. Learn more about this year’s lecturer here. […]
Something Evil’s Lurking in the Dark…
Pop culture’s preoccupation with zombie’s goes back a long ways…. Learn more about the annual Day Lecture here. Learn more about this year’s lecturer here. […]
The Dialectics of Identification
Yes, our Department is housed on the second floor of Manly Hall. It’s named after the second president of the University of Alabama, Basil Manly Sr (who held the office between 1837 and 1855). In fact, the president’s office was once in this building, on the ground floor (before the Greek Revival-styled President’s Mansion was built in 1841 and then first occupied by Manly himself), as well as dorms for students. And the other day the building got a new […]
“I Smell the Vapors of Hell on You…”
There’s a new joint British-US TV series airing over here, “Outlander,” in which a WWII English nurse finds herself mysteriously taken backward in time, from the mid-1940s to the fiercely independent Scottish highlands two hundred years earlier. (That the independence vote takes place today in Scotland makes this series airing now kind of curious.) From the point of view of the academic study of religion, the relationship between the science of the lead character and, at least in episode three, […]
Coming Soon: Zombie Apocalypse
Are you ready for the zombie apocalypse? No? Then #Day2014 can help. Follow the live tweets @StudyReligion. Learn more about the annual Day Lecture here. Learn more about this year’s lecturer here. […]