Sierra Lawson is a BA and MA graduate of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama who is now pursuing her Ph.D. in the study of religion at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In this post she reflects on how, as a TA, she’s using a model of the field we’ve come to call the examples approach. As someone who describes their research interests as investigating claims about Marian devotion in modern Latin America, you […]
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.
Dr. Roshan Abraham: Not-So-Secret Scholarly Identities
As someone familiar with the work of our Department. Dr. Roshan Abraham knows that we appreciate the complexities of identification. Join Prof. Newton as he gets to know a bit about our 2019 Day Lecturer in the interview below. See part 1 here. […]
Read More from Dr. Roshan Abraham: Not-So-Secret Scholarly Identities
It’s About More Than the Review
So, I wrote a thing recently about how writing book reviews is not worthless. But I got some push back concerning how some people in the profession, such as contingent faculty, don’t have the time or the ability to work for free by writing book reviews. I did say writing review was good for people at all career stages, after all, no? I find this response lamentable, to be honest, because I don’t happen to think that writing book reviews […]
Dr. Roshan Abraham: A Day Lecturer’s Origin Story
Dr. Roshan Abraham is our 2019 Day Lecturer. Prof. Newton was able to chat with him to learn a little bit more about his training and his scholarship. We’ve heard you’ll be talking about the Bible and comics. Comics often involve origin stories. What’s your scholarly origin story? I don’t really have a simple story about my academic training; I got to the study of religion through a very circuitous route. I’ll try to keep it brief. I did my […]
Read More from Dr. Roshan Abraham: A Day Lecturer’s Origin Story
It’s Not Worthless
Yes, I tweeted the above, this morning, in response to a tweet about “an older prof” who supposedly said to someone that writing book reviews is “professionally worthless.” What I find so frustrating is the contempt that many scholars (older or younger) seem to have for the day-to-day machinery of the field — from reviewing essay submissions to journals, reviewing book submissions to publishers, reviewing tenure & promotion applications, reviewing books, and editing journals to advising students, supervising graduate work, […]
REL MA Students Present at Culture Studies Conference
Today’s panel with REL MA students was part of the interdisciplinary culture studies graduate student conference, planned by a grad student committee and funded through the Department of American Studies at the University of Alabama. REL was represented on the planning committee by second year MA student Keeley McMurray, and it is taking place at the Bryan Conference Center on campus. […]
Read More from REL MA Students Present at Culture Studies Conference
American Examples: What Did You Gain From Being Part of AE?
Prea Persaud (B.A. from Rollins College, M.A. from Syracuse University, Doctoral Candidate at the University of Florida) is a Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte where her teaching focuses on Hinduism. In addition to teaching classes on Hinduism and the Hindu diaspora, she also teaches classes on the Caribbean. She is interested in global Hinduism, religion in the Americas (inclusive of the Caribbean), and issues concerning race, identity, and post-colonialism. […]
Read More from American Examples: What Did You Gain From Being Part of AE?
“Working Yourself into a Shoot”: When is a Performance a Performance?
As some of you may know, I love pro wrestling and I think it can be good data for the scholar of religion. Let me offer a recent example that lit up the wrestling fan twitters over the weekend. The WWE, the world’s biggest wrestling company, toured through Canada over the weekend, holding a show in Edmonton, Alberta. While driving through Canada, one of the wrestlers, Lacey Evans, was pulled over for speeding. She posted this video on Twitter Saturday. 1.Canada […]
Read More from “Working Yourself into a Shoot”: When is a Performance a Performance?
Country Music
You a fan of country music? If so, then you may already know about Ken Burns’ new 16 hour documentary, on PBS. (Maybe you’ve seen some of his others…?) But if you’re not a fan you probably should still be watching it, since (at least in the first episode) it provides some wonderful examples of how a scholar who goes digging in the archives, after the little details, can unearth some really interesting things. […]
Internships as Part of the REL M.A. Program
We recently sat down with Caity Bell, a second year M.A. student in Religious Studies, and talked about internship opportunities. This past summer she helped frame historic representations during her internship with the Landmarks Association of DeKalb County (pictured above). 1. How did you first hear about the chance to do an internship as part of your MA in Religious Studies? Caity: I first heard about the opportunity during one of our colloquium sessions. Dr. Merinda Simmons, our Grad Director, […]