A recent article in the online journal Religious Dispatches discusses the Southern Christian presence, or lack thereof, on the hit television show Nashville. In an intriguing analysis, writer Carrie Allen Tipton points to the popular “spirituality” the show displays instead of the evangelical piety one would expect to find in a program situated in the Bible Belt and devoted to the culture of country of music. Perhaps the a-religiosity of the show can be attributed to the presumed proliferation of the […]
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.
No One Has a Monopoly on Teaching Critical Thinking
Yesterday my colleague Steven Ramey posted about a recent study of those who took the 2013 Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) — their undergraduate GPA, their undergraduate major, and their LSAT score. The means for each major were then graphed (above), with undergrad GPA on the vertical axis and LSAT score on the horizontal, making Classics majors (far top right corner) the highest preforming by both measures. But you may notice that Religious Studies majors are also near the front […]
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The 12th Annual Aronov Lecture
On March 4, 2014, Dr. Richard King, Professor of Buddhist and Asian Studies at the University of Kent, UK, delivered his “From Mysticism to Spirituality: Colonial Legacies and the Reformulation of ‘the Mystic East’” as the Department of Religious Studies’ 12th Annual Aronov Lecture, named after the late Aaron Aronov — the founder of Aronov Realty and the person for whom the Department’s endowed chair in Judaic studies is also named. To learn a little more about Dr. King, take a look […]
Approaching the Bible
By Max Hartley Max Hartley is a senior studying Anthropology and Asian Studies, with a focus on East Asia. She is particularly fascinated by mythology, religion, and the influence of folk religions in the modern age, as well as shamanism in its many forms, particularly as it is practiced in Korea. This article from the Huffington Post, notes prominent physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson stating “don’t try to use the Bible as a textbook.” This small statement could mean a lot in […]
Working Miracles
Did you catch Bart Ehrman’s interview about his new book on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” the other day? No? Then have a listen. While there’s lots here to consider if we want to entertain what a truly critical, historical study of religion might look like, what a critical approach to how we talk about the past would look like — one that avoids anachronism, as if we can read back present day identities into the dim past — and […]
Largely Invisible No More
The Australian scholar, Marion Maddox, has written an interesting review essay for The International Political Science Review (get a free PDF of the article from the publisher here) documenting the lack of cross-disciplinary pollination when it comes to research on religion. […]
Making Strange
With the release of “Noah” in theaters across the U.S. on the day that I’m writing this, an old thought occurred to me: wouldn’t it be interesting to use popular movies as a way to entertain how to see “their” local as “they” might see it? For the familiarity that we attribute to stories about, say, talking to burning bushes or feeding throngs with a few fishes and loaves is surely comparable to how familiar other people surely consider the […]
Grad Tales Part IV
On March 31, 2014, the Department hosted its fourth (and final for 2013-14) “There and Back Again: A Grad’s Tale” event. For this event, Prof. Russell McCutcheon talked with REL grad John Lyles about what he’s been up to since he left Manly Hall in 2010 after earning his B.A. in Religious Studies, with a minor in Biology. […]
The Relevance of “Church”
In our classrooms, we often discuss the challenge of defining categories like religion or the sacred. While those questions sometimes appear quite abstract, separated from the issues that intersect with daily life, the relevance of such analyses can be particularly relevant. An NPR story last night on Daystar, a “religious TV network”, focused on questions of categories and their practical implications. In short, since Daystar classifies itself as a church, a classification that the IRS accepts, the TV network does […]
Renaming Our Boats
Christopher Hurt graduated in 2008 with an REL major and a minor in Creative Writing. Now living in Los Angeles and training dogs at The Zoom Room (he’s been working with dogs for 3 years), he is pursuing a career in music: recently singing and playing Hammond Organ in the Jamestown Pagans. Like many people, from what I read, I have been obsessed with HBO’s “True Detective” lately…. […]