Category: Public Events

Posts in this category discuss the Department’s various public events — whether announcing them, providing an excerpt from a speaker’s talk, or commenting on their significance and application.


2023 American Examples Call for Participants

American Examples is a collaborative working group for early career scholars who study religion in America, broadly conceived, from a variety of disciplines. The program is generously funded by the Henry Luce  Foundation. American Examples engages the study of religion in America across three areas: research, teaching, and public scholarship. Drawing on expertise from across the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, American Examples produces scholars whose work exceeds the academic and geographic boundaries of “American religion” or “American […]

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The 19th Annual Aronov Lecture

Join us for the 2022 Aronov Lecture with Prof. Andrea Jain, hosted by Prof. Steven Ramey. March 23, 2022 at 7pm (Central Time) The Aronov lecture will be virtual again this year as we transition back to normal operations and look forward to next year’s in-person event. Andrea R. Jain, Ph.D. is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis, editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture […]

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Join Us For the 9th Annual Day Lecture

Flyer for 2022 Day Lecture

Join Prof. Michael Altman in a virtual conversation with Cody Musselman of Yale University February 16, 2022 at 7pm (Central Time). Cody Musselman is a scholar of contemporary American religion with degrees in Religious Studies from Yale University, Harvard Divinity School, and Kalamazoo College. Her work focuses on the theories and embodiment of religion in everyday life. Her current manuscript, “Spiritual Exercises: Fitness and Religion in Modern America” uses the fitness franchises CrossFit and SoulCycle as case studies for theorizing […]

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Announcing Uncivil Religion: A Digital Resource about Religion in the January 6 Attack on the Capitol

Following announcements from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the University of Alabama, the Department of Religious Studies is proud to announce a new digital resource produced in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History’s Center for the Understanding of Religion in American History Uncivil Religion uses publicly available digital media to trace the threads of religious symbols, ideas, discourses, and identities throughout the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Launching just days […]

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Got a question? 1-800-REL-HELP is here with an answer.

Sometimes there are tough questions in the academic study of religion. That’s why there’s 1-800-REL-HELP, a hotline for your most difficult religious studies quandaries. Written by participants in the 2020 American Examples working group and produced by recently graduated MA students Jack Bernardi and Jeremee Nute, these videos answer questions about everything from atheism to ritual and cults to charisma. The videos are posted on the American Examples YouTube channel (Subscribe!) or you can watch them on the playlist below. […]

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Announcing the 2021 Day Virtual Lecture: Sporting the Sacred

Poster for the 2021 Day Lecture. Information in post text.

We invite you to join us on March 10th at 7pm (central) for our annual Day Lecture — which will be a virtual event this year, hosted by Prof. Richard Newton. Dr. Zachary T. Smith will discuss the academic study of religion and sports, beginning with the question: how can we think beyond the common scholarly (and popular) characterization of sport as some kind of new quasi-religious phenomena of secularized society? Zach is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Kinesiology, in […]

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New Titles in REL: Second Virtual Book Event (Zoom)

Cover art for Identifying Roots featuring a profile, Africa, and a slave ship.

Join us for another evening of conversation, this time hosted by REL’s own Dr. K. Merinda Simmons and celebrating the recent publication of another new title in REL, Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures, by Dr. Richard Newton. Due to pandemic protocols, our book events for Spring 2021 are virtual and open to guests both on and off campus. We invite you to join us virtually, via Zoom, on February 23, 2021, at 7 p.m. (US central time). […]

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New Titles in REL: Upcoming Zoom Event

Join us for an evening of conversation hosted by REL’s own Dr. Richard Newton to celebrate the publication of a new title in REL, Race and New Modernisms, co-authored by Dr. K. Merinda Simmons and Dr. James A. Crank (Department of English, University of Alabama) — a book that was a finalist for a 2020 PROSE book award (in the category of Literature). In past semesters we would have gathered in person at the local bookstore, Ernest & Hadley Booksellers, […]

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An Evening with Annette Yoshiko Reed

The Aronov Lecture brings to the University of Alabama renowned scholars of religion whose work can communicate lessons and insights relevant to the broader human sciences. One of our department’s two annual lectures, we are excited to host this year’s speaker, Dr. Annette Yoshiko Reed on the evening of Wednesday, October 21 at 7 pm (central time). […]

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