Category: Guests

From time to time guests are invited to contribute to the blog, such as visiting lecturers or members of other Departments.


Understanding how things work: The benefits of Religious Studies for a career in technology security

Understanding the various systems that organize the world is one outcome of a major inReligious Studies. Though it was not his first expectation, that is exactly what Justin Nelson (RELmajor who graduated in 2007) credits for contributing to various successes he has experienced.Last month, Justin returned to campus for Grad Tales, a department event that features alumnisharing with students their journey from graduation to wherever they are now. It is anencouraging event to attend during undergrad as most, if not […]

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Thoughts Upon Losing My Religion (Major)

Kathryn D. Blanchard is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies at Alma College, where she has taught undergraduates since 2006. I’ll start by making a long story short: the Religious Studies department at my institution has been shrinking for years, and this year the major was cut. The minor survives, for now (we got off lucky compared to French, German, and Anthropology), mostly because I—the lone faculty member—have tenure, our classes are generally full, and the college has […]

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Hear More About American Examples on the Study Religion Podcast

Did you know that we are now accepting applications for American Examples 2021? American Examples is our Luce Funded program of workshops for untenured scholars of so-called “religion in America.” You can find out more at the American Examples website. Or, you can just listen to the podcast below where American Examples alumni Travis Cooper and Hannah Scheidt talk about their experiences in the program. Applications are due October 31 so listen and apply! In   […]

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Stranger than Fiction: On “Superheroes” and “Essential Workers”

Martin Lund is senior lecturer in religion at Malmö University in Sweden. He is currently working on a co-authored book about the “supervillain” Magneto and a single-authored book about the “superhero” and theory. For many of us, the world seems a pretty strange place right now. What we consider “normal” has been upset and we’re having to make adjustments. People are reacting in different ways, some enthusiastically embracing self-quarantine and others grousing that they can’t go about their business as […]

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“The Personal Faith of Each Individual”

Recently, my friend, Jack Llewellyn, sent me the following email, with some very useful observations on just how widely used the rhetorical of personal faith has been. With his permission, I copy it below: Continuing to research Partition, I ran into a quote — speaking as the President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 August 1947, in what was really his inaugural address to the new nation, Mohammed Ali Jinnah said (among other things): “Now I think we […]

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Real People, on the Ground

Dr. David Robertson is Co-Editor of the journal Implicit Religion and co-editor and founding editor of The Religious Studies Project. If, like me, you use the kind of critical approach that Russell McCutcheon was talking about in his recent post, focusing on processes of designation, then you’ll sooner or later be told by a colleague that you waste time endlessly arguing about definitions. Often this is followed up by the claim that they “don’t do theory.” I’ve even had people exasperatedly tell […]

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Note from the Field

The following is a recent post, to the Religion in South Asia list, from Prof. J. E. Llewellyn (reprinted here with his permission). 19 December 2018 Sisters and brothers, Since I have carped about a JAAR cover photo in the past on this list, I want to commend to your attention the cover photo of the issue that I just received in the mail (86/4 December 2018). Though I am no art critic, I think is a striking photo. It […]

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The 6th Annual Day Lecture

If you weren’t able to attend our 6th annual Day Lecture this year, then you can now find it on Vimeo! Dr. Teemu Taira, who is a Professor in the Department of the Study of Religions at the University of Helsinki, spoke on “Reading Bond Films Through the Lens of Religion.” Our thanks to A&S’s etech office for filming the lecture. […]

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#RELHomecoming 2018

This weekend marked REL’s first homecoming bash on the balcony — we sent out invites to all alums for whom we have good mailing addresses and made sure our current majors & minors were in the loop. Our Alumni Liaison committee members were all there, as well as many faculty and staff members.  The result? We’d say that about 50 or 60 students, grads, family, and friends came by before kick-off, for some food, some stories and, yes, some pictures. […]

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Adventures in Archives, Classification, and Eldridge Cleaver

Dan Wells is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Religion at Florida State University. He is currently finishing a dissertation entitled, “Better Dead Than Red: A History of the Christian Crusade Aesthetic.” Growing up I wanted to be Indiana Jones. I wanted to see some adventure. Long before my awareness of the almost innumerable issues that plagued the series, I thought melting Nazi faces off with ancient artifacts while wearing a cool hat and neglecting professional responsibilities in service […]

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