Sierra Lawson is an M.A. student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama; you can visit her website here. I recently saw an advertisement that featured two lungs, one healthy and another almost unrecognizable as a human organ. This reminded me of a similar comparison at a summer camp I once attended where they showed us a cow’s lung that had supposedly been exposed to a great deal of smoke. While both demonstrations had different end goals, the […]
Tag: Classification
An Experimental Case Study
There’s a timely project — happening now, right before our eyes — that someone in the study of religion could (should?) tackle, concerning the strategic use of origins tales in the present — not just that, but the self-beneficial way in which groups choose to use and sanction them (or simply ignore them). […]
Marian Apparitions: Religious Ephemera and Politics of Classification
Sierra Lawson, an MA student in the Department of Religious Studies, led our most recent journal group and has some reflections on the reading, Learn more about her work here. In the Religion in Culture M.A. program, our monthly journal group has created a space in which graduate students can engage with faculty, beyond just their advisor, regarding their individual interests–interests that, ideally, will be reflected in their eventual thesis. While my focus on the Virgin of Guadalupe and her […]
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In Other Words…
Like some of you, I woke today to an email soliciting submissions for a special issue of the open access online journal Open Theology. The email opened as follows: A person who reads texts from other religious traditions sometimes encounters what the reader understands to be a transcendent encounter with ultimacy. Encounters with the ultimate – not only with texts but also with practices and persons – need to be taken into account theologically…. Now, I’m not going to harp […]
Practical Teaching Tips #47
Looking for a quick example of the problem of elevating folk terms to work as if they’re cross-culturally comparative categories? Then look no further than the US’s tax code — in particular the guide for filings by churches and religious organizations […]
Keyword
A new book appeared in the Department the other day (it’s the second edition). Well, not new — the first edition came out in 2007 and this edition came out in 2014. So, having not seen it before, maybe I should just say that it’s new to me. […]
What Gets Labeled as Religion
Still not quite sure what scholars study when they say that they study the classification or the category religion itself…? Think that all scholars of religion need a definition of religion to get started with their work? If so, why not give a listen to episode 21, that was just posted the other day. It’s a short podcast by Malory Nye, author of a widely used intro book in our field, and he elaborates on the simple fact that he’s […]
Outlawed Violation of Human Rights or Protected Religious Practice?
Given the prominence of debates over classification in my classes I’m always on the look-out for a good e.g., something useful in getting us thinking about the interests driving classification systems and their practical effects — and, perhaps, illustrating how naming something as religion plays a role in all this. […]
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Yes, Patches O’Houlihan is My Pedagogical Mentor
You seen “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” (2004)? No? Well it provides some important pedagogical lessons. […]
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Words and Things: What’s in the Black Box?
Shannon Trosper Schorey is a doctoral candidate in the Religious Studies Department at UNC Chapel Hill. Her dissertation “The Internet is Holy” charts the fusion of religion and information technologies in Silicon Valley since the mid-20th century. (The introduction to the series is posted here.) In our Religious Studies Department at UNC Chapel Hill I teach an undergraduate course called Technology, the Self, and Ethical Problems. The course serves two purposes, the first is to introduce students to the range […]