It’s 1:00am, and I can’t sleep. I went to sleep early to be ready for the first day of the new semester. And for the past hour, I’ve been thinking about one thing and one thing only… Domino’s Pizza! […]
Tag: Culture
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. […]
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Getting the Party Started on Syllabus Day
The first day of class can be a bit nerve-racking, even for profs. One might think that profs have it easy at the start of the semester, but we all know the importance of first impressions. And for myself, there can be a lot of anxiety around those initial activities. How much of the syllabus should we read? I don’t want to bore anyone, but I don’t want students starting out lost. Do we dive right into content? The semester […]
A Religious Studies Guide to WrestleMania
On the first page of Imagining Religion, historian of religion Jonathan Z. Smith writes: For the self-conscious student of religion, no datum possess intrinsic interest. It is of value only insofar as it can serve as exempli gratis of some fundamental issue in the imagination of religion. For Smith, and I agree with him, scholars should choose particular examples as data that suit particular questions that they want to answer. In this way, the scholar of religion is not bound by […]
Heineken Beer Dismantles the Traditional Family
Caity Bell, a student in Prof. Ramey REL501 course, ponders the invention of tradition. This post originally appeared on the REL 501 Religious Studies & Social Theory: Foundations course blog. The holiday season is fast upon us and with it a substantial rise in commercials meant to tug upon consumers’ heartstrings, to invoke that special sense of holiday cheer that drives us, no doubt, to purchase more products than we have year-round. If you don’t run from the room […]
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A Return to the Nacirema
Ryland Hunstad, a student in Prof. Simmons’s REL 100 this past semester, is a sophomore from Denver, Colorado majoring in finance & management information systems, with interests in politics, philosophy, & religion. In the following post he offers some further reflections on a group of people who were originally studied, in the mid-1950s, by the anthropologist, Horace Miner. Since the last expedition to the land of the Nacirema, anthropologists have had several more opportunities to visit these people and observe […]
Culture and Film-Making
Matthew McCullough is a junior from Huntsville, Alabama majoring in Religious Studies and Political Science. The following was written for REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. […]
There’s No Such Thing as “Cultural Memory”
Matthew C. Baldwin is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Mars Hill University, where he teaches ancient history, Biblical literature and classical Biblical languages, and method and theory for religious studies. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Read his earlier post on cultural memory here. Que reste-t-il de nos amours Que reste-t-il de ces beaux jours Une photo, vieille photo De ma jeunesse Que reste-t-il des billets doux Des mois d’ avril, des rendez-vous Un souvenir qui me poursuit Sans cesse… […]
On “Cultural Memory”
Matthew C. Baldwin is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Mars Hill University, where he teaches ancient history, Biblical literature and classical Biblical languages, and method and theory for religious studies. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Have you noticed the recent explosion of interest the category of “memory” among scholars of history, culture, and “religion”? A WorldCat search of books published since 2000 in “su:Religion” turns up 522 works with the word “memory” in a title. Looking at peer […]
Narrative Constructs Culture
Micah Davis is a graduate of the University of Alabama who majored in Religious Studies and Philosophy. He is interested in ethics and social theory. The following was written for REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. REL 360 is the Department’s one-credit hour course that shows four films focusing on religion in pop culture throughout the semester. What do the Jewish Bible, the stories of Jesus, and movies have in common? They are all story-driven. The stories found in these different […]