In this episode we talk with Emily Crews about something in her office that you might not have noticed… Interested in what else the faculty have in their offices…? […]
Category: Relevance of Humanities
Posts in this category discuss the wider relevance of those tools, methods, and disciplines often grouped together and called the Humanities.
An REL Major from the Start
Now in his second year in REL at UA, we finally got a chance to ask Prof. Newton a few questions about his training and his research…. Who else haven’t you met yet…? […]
Have You Met Emily Crews?
Emily Crews is in the second year of teaching full-time in REL (while finishing her dissertation at the University of Chicago), devoting her time mostly to Honors intro courses but also teaching our monthly evening film class. If you’ve not had a class with her then this is your chance to get to know a little more about her work. Thanks to REL students Kyle Ashley and Savannah Aldridge for the movie magic. […]
The Bible in Culture: Reading and Writing with Zines
Prof. Newton discusses the origin of a creative student research project that he used to end his Introduction to New Testament course. Learn more about studying the Bible in Culture in the first, second, and third entries in this series. […]
Read More from The Bible in Culture: Reading and Writing with Zines
Kashmir Confusion
Daniel W. Lee is a Marketing major with a Religious Studies minor from the University of Alabama. He plans to continue his studies of religion after his graduation this May. The threat of nuclear war loomed over Asia earlier this Fall. The dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan was the basis for this threat, escalating tensions dramatically between these two countries. The article Pakistan’s Ambiguity Over Nuclear War Comes to the Fore from The Times of India discussed how […]
Teaching the Bible in Culture: Identifying Room for Questions Unanswered
Prof. Newton reflects on his approach to teaching the Bible in a public university. Study religion and find out about the Bible in Culture here, part 1, and in future posts. One of my aims in my Introduction to New Testament course is to lead students in thinking carefully about the actors and drama represented in the text. As Adele Reinhartz notes, when our explanations employ terms like “Pharisee,” “Jews,” “Samaritans,” or “Romans” too assuredly, we probably have more questions to ask […]
Read More from Teaching the Bible in Culture: Identifying Room for Questions Unanswered
An Introduction to Studying the Bible in Culture
Prof. Newton reflects on his approach to teaching the Bible in a public university. Study religion and find out about the Bible in Culture here on the blog over the next few days. […]
Read More from An Introduction to Studying the Bible in Culture
The Department of Religious Studies — Early Times, Part 2
Dr. Joseph Bettis was the first Chair of UA’s Department of Religious Studies, and the following article was commissioned for and then published in our Spring 2005 issue of the Department newsletter; it is reposted here, in its original form, with his kind permission. (The above photo is from the front page of the Tuscaloosa News on April 6, 1968.) I came to Tuscaloosa in 1964, one year after George Wallace had “stood in the schoolhouse door” to prevent Autherine […]
Read More from The Department of Religious Studies — Early Times, Part 2
The Department of Religious Studies — Early Times, Part 1
The following reminiscence about the Department’s history, written by the late Patrick Green, onetime Chair of REL, was commissioned for and printed in our Spring 2004 newsletter. It is re-posted here in its original form. It began with a man on a motorcycle, smoking a cigar. Joe Bettis, a recently minted Ph.D. from Princeton, was hired by the College of Arts and Sciences to start a Department of Religious Studies. It was1964, a few years after the Supreme Court had […]
Read More from The Department of Religious Studies — Early Times, Part 1
“Dr. Green Rocks!”
There was a memorial service on campus yesterday for Patrick E. Green, who passed away on October 20, 2019. He came to the University of Alabama, from the University of Texas, back in 1969. That’s back when the field that some of us today take for granted was just getting going and the UA Department that we nowcelebrate as being over 50 years old was in its infancy, with its few faculty housed in ten Hoor Hall. For that was […]