Humanities – Page 4 – Studying Religion in Culture

The REL Journal Group: Durkheim and Data Edition

October 4, 2017 by Sarah Griswold

The following exchange between Prof. Mike Altman and Sarah Griswold, a student in our MA program, reflects on the recent meeting of the journal reading group, part of our Religion in Culture MA. Mike Altman: Sarah, for our first journal reading group you chose the article “Durkheim with Data: The Databse of Religious History” from a recent issue of JAAR. What’s the gist of the article and why did you think we should read it in our group of MA students […]

“What Do I Talk About At the Job Interview?”

August 26, 2017 by Russell McCutcheon

I’ve written a number of blog posts over the years about the skills that students in the academic study of religion acquire. It’s worth thinking about because too many people seem focused only on the content of an undergrad degree, assuming that the thing that you study is the thing that you’ll do. It’s an effect of the longstanding professionalization of the university, of course (whereby specialties once reserved for separate, two-year colleges or tech schools moved into the university […]

Democracy is Risky

March 27, 2016 by Russell McCutcheon

A couple years ago I gave a talk at Lehigh University (a lecture that became chapter 8 in a book I published not long after). The topic was on my frustration with how scholars of religion — because they define their object of study as a universally present and deeply meaningful human impulse — often assume their research is always relevant. As evidence I drew on a recent national conference where scholars of religion were encouraged to think about how […]

On the Value of the Humanities and Religious Studies

February 2, 2016 by admin

Susan Henking is President of Shimer College, an unconventional great books college in Chicago, Illinois. She got there by going to college as a first generation college goer, majoring in Religion and in Sociology at Duke University and then pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in Religion and Psychological Studies. While there, she fell in love with undergraduate liberal education. Her scholarly work includes co-editing two books, Que(e)rying Religion (1997) and Mourning Religion (2008) as well as many […]

What Remain Constant

February 1, 2016 by Russell McCutcheon

Whatever job you take, the specific subjects you studied in college will probably prove somewhat irrelevant to the day-to-day work you will do soon after you graduate. And even if they are relevant, that will change. People who learned to write code for computers just ten years ago now confront a new world of apps and mobile devices. What remain constant are the skills you acquire and the methods you learn to approach problems. – Fareed Zakaria In Defense of […]

Is Your Humanities Degree Relevant?

July 30, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

Are the Humanities relevant? Do you use Slack? Do you know what Stewart Butterfield’s (its founder) undergrad and grad degrees were in? If the following excerpt from this article makes you interested…. …, then you should read it. […]

All Systems Normal

March 5, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

Yesterday we had our second annual undergraduate research symposium, which featured the work of four current students — many of whom are double majors — and a grad of our Department. We instituted this event last year and held it at the university club at the same time as our senior seminar took place, inviting those students as the audience. But this year we decided to try holding it in a much larger venue and to advertise it among all […]

An Interview with Ann Taves

December 9, 2014 by Russell McCutcheon

An interview with Prof. Ann Taves has just been posted — she is a former President of the American Academy of Religion and is well known for her work on religious experience as well as her interest in applying the finding from cognitive psychology to the study of religion. She’s now at work on a new book, Revelatory Events: Unusual Experiences and New Spiritual Paths, and supervising the interdisciplinary Religion, Experience, and Mind (REM) Lab Group at the University of […]

What Would I Ever Do with a Humanities Degree?

November 4, 2014 by admin

Catie Stewart is a sophomore at the University of Alabama from Madison, Mississippi. She is double majoring in English and Religious Studies. Entering into my first year at the University of Alabama, I declared a chemical engineering major. I had always excelled in science and math in high school and had seemingly enjoyed the two catch-all chemistry classes I took my sophomore and senior years, so, to me and everyone advising me, it only made sense that I go into the field […]

Outside the Box

October 31, 2014 by Russell McCutcheon

On the flight home from a visit to Lehigh University this past week I started reading Steven Johnson’s engaging How We Got to Now (2014) — a popularly-written book on the conditions and unanticipated connections that helped to make possible the innovations that many of us now take for granted (e.g., public sanitation or refrigeration). […]

Studying Religion in Culture

Ongoing Discussions at the University of Alabama

Tag: Humanities