Studying Religion in Culture

Simulation Theory: How is ‘Religion’ Part of It?

January 24, 2022 by admin

Tyler Dettmar developed this post from a presentation originally created for Prof. Lauren Horn Griffin’s REL 245, American Religious History. Special thanks for editorial assistance from REL’s graduate student Jacob Barrett. In recent years, something called simulation theory has begun appearing more frequently in public discourse. Public figures such as Elon Musk have called attention to this ideology, spreading quickly over social media. With the latest movie in The Matrix franchise coming out a few weeks ago, conversation about simulation […]

Sneaker Culture: An Item-Based Religious Movement?

January 10, 2022 by admin

Drew Whinery, from Tuscaloosa, AL, is a senior majoring in Music, with a minor in Criminal Justice. The following post developed from a presentation originally created for an REL class with Prof. Lauren Horn Griffin. As a college student, I tend to stay up with trends. One that has been popular for years is known as “Sneaker Culture.” The idea behind Sneaker Culture is that certain shoes, or sneakers, are released in a limited supply and many people seek them […]

Prof. Ramey Interviews Mitsutoshi Horii, Co-editor of Method and Theory in the Study of Religion

January 5, 2022 by admin

Mitsutoshi Horii joined the editorial team for Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (a peer reviewed, quarterly journal of the North American Association for the Study of Religion, published by Brill) a few months ago, working with Steven Ramey (professor and graduate director in our program) and Aaron Hughes (professor at University of Rochester).* Dr. Horii is Professor at Shumei University, Japan, and currently serves as Principal at Shumei’s overseas campus in the UK, Chaucer College. Beyond his […]

Internships and Unexpected Relevance of REL Skills

January 4, 2022 by admin

Sonya Harwood-Johnson, originally from Grimes, Iowa, received her B.S. in Anthropology and Religious Studies, with a minor in Environmental Studies, from Iowa State University in 2020. She began work last month as a full-time International Programming Assistant at UA’s International Student and Scholars Services office; she will complete her M.A. in the study of religion at UA, as a part-time student, later in 2022. When deciding which university I wanted to apply to for my Master’s degree, Alabama’s Religion in […]

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

January 3, 2022 by admin

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 […]

Something New From the “Nones” with the Pew Research Center’s Online Survey Results

December 17, 2021 by Steven Ramey

The Nones are causing “trouble” again, with sensationalized headlines about the decline of Christianity. These takes can easily reinforce the anxiety among some about changes in society and activate nostalgia for some mythic 1950’s America (which was certainly not experienced as peaceful or comfortable by many marginalized groups in the 1950s, or even today). Based on survey data that the Pew Research Center released this week, those who represent themselves as unaffiliated with religion have grown to almost 30% of […]

REL News: Jackson Foster Awarded Marshall Scholarship

December 14, 2021 by admin

Established in the UK by the passage of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Act, the Marshall Scholarship annually finances up to fifty young Americans to study for a degree in any field in the United Kingdom. Chosen for their leadership and ambassadorial potential, as well as their academic ability, Marshall Scholars are a living embodiment of the enduring special relationship between the UK and America. This year, the British government selected forty-one winners from over one-thousand university-endorsed applicants and REL is […]

January 6, 2021: Call it Epiphany

December 13, 2021 by Theodore Trost

What one calls the events that took place in the capital of the nation on January 6, 2021, is a matter of perspective—a viewpoint acquired primarily, I suspect, through the political persuasion of the one giving name to the phenomenon. […]

Announcing the 2022 American Example Participants

December 1, 2021 by Michael Altman

The American Examples steering committee is proud to announce the cohort of participants for the 2022 American Examples workshops. American Examples is a collaborative working group for early career scholars of religion in America, broadly conceived, from a variety of disciplines. American Examples engages the study of religion in America across the three areas of research, teaching, and public scholarship. This year, our entire cohort is non-tenure track participants, continuing our emphasis on opening up opportunities for early career scholars. […]

All ToC and No Action: Feminism in Philosophy of Religion Textbooks

November 29, 2021 by Nathan Loewen

Feminist theory is all but absent from contemporary research in philosophy of religion. Open a textbook from the field and peruse the table of contents (ToC), and you might see “feminism” listed as a chapter or sub-heading. The contents of that chapter will very likely include references to works published squarely within the 1990s by self-identified “feminist philosophers of religion.” * After reading that section of the textbook, readers will ask: “If even one feminist critique is even partly correct, […]