In an article today, entitled “No Right to Preach,” Inside Higher Ed reports: While the First Amendment provides faculty members at public colleges and universities with considerable latitude about what they may say, a federal judge has ruled it does not restrict a state university from cautioning professors against making statements that favor one religion or another, and that may seem to insult the religious views of some students. […]
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.
Lectures and Films and Blogs, Oh My…
REL 360 is the course number that we’re now using for a new, 1 credit hour course (repeatable for up to a total of 3 semesters/credit hours), beginning in the Fall of 2014, on what happens when the Humanities bumps into popular culture. Offered each semester, it is the outgrowth of the past two years of informal movie nights with our student association — although they were successful events they lacked the opportunity of delving into the issues of the […]
Extra, Exatra: Idol Worshipers Make the News
THIMPHU, Bhutan (RNS) For centuries, Buddhists in this tiny landlocked Himalayan kingdom have had a special devotion to the most unusual of objects: the phallus. Painted on the walls of their homes, hanging from the eaves of their houses and seen in vehicles and on rooftops, images of the phallus are an essential part of Bhutan’s traditional ceremonies…. So opens a recent Huffington Post article, ripped straight from the 19th century’s headlines. For if you want to see how very […]
From Mysticism to Spirituality, From Tradition to Individual
Prof. Richard King, from the University of Kent in the UK, was on campus to deliver our 12th annual Aronov Lecture. Perhaps best known to some for his interest in the history of the study of religion in south Asia during the colonial period (e.g., his 1999 book, below), […]
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It’s Alive
Throughout times, also Christianity has manifested itself and has been manifested and lived out materially through objects, symbols, the body, and the environment… So opens the call for papers for an upcoming conference in Finland — making pretty evident, I think, how current, seemingly cutting edge, scholarship on so-called embodied religion or material religion is just a repackaged version of (as I described it earlier this morning on a Facebook post, and as I’ve discussed here before and before that) […]
Competing Representations
T. Nicole Goulet is a Sessional Instructor at the University of Manitoba and Brandon University. Having completed her Ph.D. at the University of Manitoba on textual representations of Sarada Devi, Dr. Goulet continues her research on the intersection of colonial politics and religious practice in India, with special reference to gender. After an online conversation about the recent Doniger/Penguin affair it was evident that she had something new to say about this episode and so we invited this post. In […]
A Great Start to a New Annual Event
Yesterday evening the Department hosted its first annual REL Honors Research Symposium that showcased our undergraduates’ own independent research. Our panelists Andie Alexander (a grad of REL), Jordan Atkinson, Seth Cox, Wesley Davidson, and Katelyn Smith presented their research—most of which was produced as a final paper for different courses in the department—on varying topics ranging from history and narrative, to religious/social identification, redefinition, and inter-generational differences. […]
A Big Thumb’s Up
How confident are we that the students and grad presenting today at our inaugural undergraduate research symposium will all do a great job?That’s how confident. See you at 3:30 at the University Club (upstairs). And dress up a bit. Chuck Norris would. […]
Coming Soon…
On March 4, 2014 at 7:00pm in Gorgas 205, Dr. Richard King, University of Kent, will be presenting his “From Mysticism to Spirituality: Colonial Legacies and the Reformulation of ‘the Mystic East” for the 12th annual Aronov Lecture for the Department of Religious Studies. Prof. King’s work focuses on the history of European colonialism and the study of South Asian cultures, histories, and traditions. He also has a particular interest in Indian philosophical thought in the period between 200-900 CE and especially […]
ar·ti·facts with Prof. Russell McCutcheon
Prof. Russell McCutcheon discusses his view on choosing relevant ar·ti·facts and what’s truly worth talking about. Take a look… […]