#REL50th – Studying Religion in Culture

The Department of Religious Studies — Early Times, Part 2

November 20, 2019 by admin

Dr. Joseph Bettis was the first Chair of UA’s Department of Religious Studies, and the following article was commissioned for and then published in our Spring 2005 issue of the Department newsletter; it is reposted here, in its original form, with his kind permission. (The above photo is from the front page of the Tuscaloosa News on April 6, 1968.) I came to Tuscaloosa in 1964, one year after George Wallace had “stood in the schoolhouse door” to prevent Autherine […]

The Department of Religious Studies — Early Times, Part 1

November 19, 2019 by admin

The following reminiscence about the Department’s history, written by the late Patrick Green, onetime Chair of REL, was commissioned for and printed in our Spring 2004 newsletter. It is re-posted here in its original form. It began with a man on a motorcycle, smoking a cigar. Joe Bettis, a recently minted Ph.D. from Princeton, was hired by the College of Arts and Sciences to start a Department of Religious Studies. It was1964, a few years after the Supreme Court had […]

“Dr. Green Rocks!”

November 18, 2019 by Russell McCutcheon

There was a memorial service on campus yesterday for Patrick E. Green, who passed away on October 20, 2019. He came to the University of Alabama, from the University of Texas, back in 1969. That’s back when the field that some of us today take for granted was just getting going and the UA Department that we nowcelebrate as being over 50 years old was in its infancy, with its few faculty housed in ten Hoor Hall. For that was […]

Grad Tales–50th Anniversary Style

May 17, 2017 by admin

The Department recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a series of events and guest lecturers, and along with those guest speakers, we brought back a few of our grads to share their thoughts on how their time in REL impacted them–and how the tools they learned here are still being used in their day-to-day lives. […]

Honors Day 2017

April 19, 2017 by admin

Yes, it’s that time of year again: the Spring semester is starting to wind down and that means it was once again time for balcony banners and Honors Day — the occasion when we recognize some milestones and noteworthy accomplishments from the past year. […]

A Lesson on Origins at #REL50th

April 1, 2017 by Russell McCutcheon

Our 50th anniversary celebrations have come to an end (but we’ll post a fun fact each Monday for the rest of the semester) — and, if you ask me, it was a great success. We filmed parts of it (i.e., the two faculty lectures, by Profs. Altman and Trost, and the opening to the next night’s Grad Tales panel — featuring five grads who returned to help mark the occasion [scroll down here to see who they were]); these movies […]