Jared Powell – Studying Religion in Culture

Humanities PhDs and the Academic Job Market: A New Podcast Series

September 7, 2022 by Russell McCutcheon

Erica Bennett and Jacob Barrett, podcast series hosts

Over the summer Erica Bennett, now in her final year of our M.A., worked with a recent M.A. alum, Jacob Barrett (now in the first year of his Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill), on a four part podcast series, devoted to the academic job market and the variety of careers for which Humanities Ph.D.s are suited — if, that is, Ph.D. students and the faculty who train them see careers outside academia as relevant sites where their research skills can […]

Jared Powell: One Outstanding Student Worker

April 14, 2016 by Michael Altman

So much of what happens to make REL into the wonderful department that it is happens because of our hardworking main office staff. The videos, the buttons, the events, and all the other things that make this department such a joy to be part of couldn’t happen without our student workers. Yesterday, one of those student workers finally got the recognition he deserves. Jared Powell, an REL major, a graduating senior, a future MA student in English, and a man […]

Classroom to Conference: REL Majors Presenting Their Research

January 26, 2016 by admin

REL is very happy to announce that two of our students have been accepted to present their research at the Southeastern regional meeting of the American Academy of Religion in March. Jared Powell will be presenting a paper titled “And the Beat Goes On: Imaginings and Retellings of Han Shan by Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac.” The conference paper began as a project in Dr. Ramey‘s REL 419: Tales From Asia course. In the paper, he analyzes the ways in which […]

Sita Sings the Universal Blues

October 28, 2015 by Jared Powell

by Jared Powell Jared Powell is a senior from Canton, Mississippi majoring in English and Religious Studies. This post was originally written for Steven Ramey’s REL 419 class. Any college student would agree that the last thing we need is another Netflix suggestion to distract us from our studies… but that is exactly what I’m going to offer. Put down your English readings, forget about that MathLab assignment, and–dare I say it–skip the football game and watch Sita Sings the Blues. […]

Weaving the Thread of Oregon’s Origins

October 9, 2015 by Jared Powell

By Jared Powell Jared Powell is a senior from Canton, Mississippi majoring in English and Religious Studies If you follow college football, like most folks around here do, then you’ve surely heard a thing or two about the Oregon Ducks. Oregon has carved their place as one of the most successful college teams of the past five years with an imagined rivalry with the Tide (“We want Bama” anyone?), but they also make waves week in and week out with their […]

Eudora Welty’s Jitney Jungle

October 9, 2014 by Jared Powell

By Jared Powell Jared Powell is a junior from Canton, Mississippi majoring in English and Religious Studies. I recently attended the first Hidden Humanities lecture, hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences, featuring Dr. William Ferris and his talk “Standing at the Crossroads: The Humanities and the American South.” The lecture struck a few chords with me–and not just because he also played a couple blues classics on a steel string guitar during the lecture–and got me thinking about […]

Identifying for the Jokes

June 16, 2014 by Jared Powell

By Jared Powell Jared Powell is a junior from Canton, Mississippi majoring in English and Religious Studies. He enjoys watching Seinfeld, his favorite TV show, and is always disappointed when somebody does not understand a reference to the famed sitcom. He one day hopes to become an architect, or maybe an importer-exporter of latex products. What are the various identities, religious or nonreligious, that an individual can assume? Why do individuals choose to identify with certain categories? How do individuals exhibit or prove […]