Uncategorized – Studying Religion in Culture

What do you mean, “I don’t look like a religious studies major”?

March 9, 2023 by admin

An actor playing Elle Woods with her small dog in the musical stage adaptation of the film Legally Blonde.

by Madeline Brodbeck, who is a junior majoring in Religious Studies and Political Science. While participating in an icebreaker last semester, we were asked to share our major with a small group of classmates. When it came to be my turn, I informed the group that I was double majoring in political science and religious studies. My classmates were very interested to learn more about my religious studies major. One classmate responded, “You don’t look like a religious studies major.” […]

Crafting a Warrior Idiom

February 8, 2023 by Daniel Levine

By Daniel Levine. Anyone who’s taken REL 371 with me over the past three years – or has taken my Israel-Palestine course – will recall a persistent interest in fear: what it does to us, and the various means by which it is channeled to political ends. Some of this work appeared in print for the first time last summer. One aspect of such ‘channeling’ comprises the use of ‘private languages’ to mark off particular fearful experiences: by soldiers and […]

Humans and Nazis: Reevaluating the Conversation of Us and Them

February 6, 2023 by admin

Kadence D. Jackson is a freshman majoring in Political Science and Religious Studies, along with a minor in Judaic Studies. “Evil, animals…,” “Devils, monsters, equivalent to Satan himself…”—these are expressions commonly used when we reference those who belonged to the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party during the Second World War. This language is usually voiced casually, perhaps as a means of rationalization; but ironically, I believe it’s actually disassociating Nazis from mankind. […]

Welcome to Spring 2023!

January 10, 2023 by admin

Classes begin this week, and REL’s faculty are looking forward to seeing who’s there. The on-campus undergraduate courses in REL this semester include introductions to religious studies by Profs. Altman and Szanto. Other 100-level, introductory courses are being offered by Profs. Ramey, Loewen, and Kyselov. The 200-level courses have a variety of topical foci, with Prof. Jacobs teaching on Judaism, Prof. Newton on African Diaspora Religions, and Prof. Szanto on Islam. Prof. Jacobs also teaches a 300-level course on Jewish-Christian […]

REL100 in Retrospect, Part 2

December 13, 2022 by Vaia Touna

An open page of McCutcheon's textbook Studying Religion

The first of a three-part series on students’ reflections written as part of a final assignment in Prof. Vaia Touna’s REL 100 “Introduction to the Study of Religion” in Fall 2022. […]

None is Too Many*

October 19, 2022 by etech_admin

Cover art for Ken Burns' documentary "The U.S. and the Holocaust"

Bar none, Ken Burns (b. 1953) is decidedly America’s most important documentary filmmaker, notable as well for his multi-episode contributions exploring facets of this nation’s history and story His latest contribution—The U.S. and the Holocaust [2022; 3]—is no exception, and, as he himself has acknowledged in more than one interview, builds upon his 2014 The Roosevelts where the Holocaust/Shoah played only a relatively minor role, but one which he readily has also acknowledged may yet prove to be the “most […]

Hunting Witches: a Social Constructivist Perspective

August 18, 2022 by admin

First page of Malleus maleficarum from 1572

Lauren Thompson is a senior majoring in Psychology and minoring in Asian Studies. Lauren was a student in Prof. Loewen’s REL101 “The Violent and the Sacred” in Spring 2022. As a senior this year, Lauren will further explore an interest in Religious Studies and Occultism while applying for graduate studies. The history of Western Europe is punctuated by massacres and individual killings of ‘witches.’ Neighbors turned on neighbors, Church turned on parishioners, and the higher classes turned on the lower: […]

Restraint, Anxiety, Faith: Global Politics at the End

August 16, 2022 by Daniel Levine

Image of Basil Liddell Hart from Wikimedia commons

Manners constitute a restraint.[1] So quoth Basil Henry Liddell Hart, the British defense intellectual, writing in 1946. Liddell-Hart’s prominence among British policymakers and defense planners of his generation is difficult to overstate. Along with JFC ‘Boney’ Fuller, he was one of the first to understand the significance of the tank, and of mechanized warfare (though he was – or so the story goes – unable to convince the Exchequer to pay for them). Later, he would serve as defence/military affairs […]

Sabbatical Publications from Prof. Jacobs’ Desk

April 13, 2022 by Steven Jacobs

“Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is a wearying of the flesh.” (Ecclesiastes 12:12) So says the unknown author of Sefer Kohelet/the Book of Ecclesiastes, though both the Jewish and Christian religious traditions attribute it to Melekh Shlomo/King Solomon in his old age. (They also attribute, without evidence, Shir Ha-Shirim/Song of Songs to his youthful exuberance, and Sefer Mishlei/the Book of Proverbs, again without evidence, to his middle years. Further complicating this picture, various […]

Podcast Series: Teaching Philosophy of Religion in the 21st Century

February 7, 2022 by Nathan Loewen

Can philosophy of religion enter the globalized, 21st-century world? If so, how might the field be taught? Prof. Loewen interviewed participants from a recently-concluded project funded by the Wabash Center, “Teaching Philosophy of Religion Inclusively to Diverse Students”: Jin Y. Park, Kevin Schilbrack, Eric Dickman, Louis Komjathy, and Gereon Kopf. You can listen to the episodes as a series on REL Podcasts or find them on the media page of the Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion website. […]

Studying Religion in Culture

Ongoing Discussions at the University of Alabama

Category: Uncategorized