Ana Schuber is a graduate student in our Religion in Culture MA program. This post was originally published on our Religious Studies & Social Theory: Foundations course blog. So, here in the middle, actually right up on the final run toward the mid-term 2018 elections, it was amazing to see a political advertisement that turned the standard dialogue about women running for office on its head. Paid for by the Serve America PAC, a democratic effort, this ad features eight first time congressional […]
Tag: Gender
The Problem of First Person Authority
If you’ve paid attention to the news in the US over the past week or so, you’ll know that a bomber was loose in Austin, Texas, and that the suspect was cornered by authorities the other day and blew himself up. […]
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 […]
Stereotyping Gender: I’m 100% Masculine
By Andie Alexander Andie Alexander earned her B.A. in Religious Studies and History in 2012. She is completing her M.A. in Religious Studies at CU Boulder. Andie also works as the online Curator for the Culture on the Edge blog. Some weeks back, I saw several of my friends posting their results of this Gender Role Test on Facebook. I usually tend to keep scrolling, but after seeing several of these results, I just couldn’t resist what I knew would make […]
Marketing and the Academic Study of Religion
What connects red lipstick, racecars, and health care? The study of religion, of course! (Well, sort of.) Khara Cole, a 2013 graduate with a double major in Religious Studies and Public Relations, has found the skills that she developed in Religious Studies particularly important, as she designs products and their implementation for a health insurance company. She returned to campus last week to talk about her experiences working in the corporate world. The tasks of writing persuasive business proposals and […]
Explaining Nags, Witches, and Evil Stepmothers
Did you hear the radio story this morning on folklorists attempting to explain why, all across culture, old women so often appear as evil characters in fairy tales and myths…? […]
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Why Good Looks Matter
Veikko Anttonen is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at the University of Turku, Finland. He was elected Vice-President of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) for the period 2015-2020 at the conference in Erfurt last August. He was the Professor and Chair of Comparative Religion at the University of Turku between 1997-2015. The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, stated in an interview that a successor to his post can be a woman if she is good looking, […]
“Like a Burqa Made of Flesh”
Have you heard? There’s a conference taking place at the Vatican, on women. You can learn more here if the media player doesn’t load, or just listen to the story below. […]
“I Smell the Vapors of Hell on You…”
There’s a new joint British-US TV series airing over here, “Outlander,” in which a WWII English nurse finds herself mysteriously taken backward in time, from the mid-1940s to the fiercely independent Scottish highlands two hundred years earlier. (That the independence vote takes place today in Scotland makes this series airing now kind of curious.) From the point of view of the academic study of religion, the relationship between the science of the lead character and, at least in episode three, […]
“Firm Religious Beliefs”
Did you catch the story, the other day, of the Canadian University in which religious identity and gender-inclusion ran straight into each other and the former seems to have prevailed? As reported in the newspaper, The Toronto Star, the story opens: A York University student who refused to do group work with women for religious reasons has sparked a human rights tug-of-war between a professor and campus administration. While the professor wanted to deny the student’s request, a university dean […]