Tag: Religious Studies


Thanks, Religious Studies

By Lexi Poston Lexi Poston graduated from UA in 2015 with a triple major in International Studies, Religious Studies, and Criminal Justice and a triple minor in Italian, Judaic Studies, and the Blount Minor. She is currently a graduate student in UA’s Criminal Justice Department where her research interests include prejudice, hate groups, hate crimes, human trafficking, genocide, and how perpetrators of such crimes are prosecuted. “Are you going to seminary?” At one point during undergrad, religious studies majors have […]

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Revolutionary Love?

A colleague at another school sent me the email that recently went out to all program unit chairs for the American Academy of Religion (AAR), our field’s largest professional association. Because the president sets a theme for the upcoming year’s annual meeting, our incoming president has written the following text to explain her choice of theme for 2016 — one that all program units are then invited to focus on, to whatever extent, in their own calls for papers. […]

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The Tremendous Irony of it All

Last week there was some chatter online about the nominations put forward for the leadership of our field’s main professional association. (Question: why does the nominating committee exercise a monopoly on determining the organization’s leadership?) Apart from a variety of posts on Facebook and Twitter, the blogs I saw were those by Mike Altman, Aaron Hughes, Finbarr Curtis, and Elesha Coffman. They’re all well worth reading. The issue, for some, seems to be that the VP nominees are both Christian […]

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Our Interpretive Introductory Courses

Mark Ortiz is a senior double-majoring in Religious Studies and New College with a depth study in Political Ecology. He is especially interested in climate politics and that bundle of things and stuff we call “nature.” As part of an independent study this semester, I’ve been very busy chatting to professors in the department about their approaches to teaching the introductory course in our discipline. I found this assignment especially timely, as I am slated to begin a graduate program […]

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Everyone Should Major in Religious Studies (Or At Least Take the Intro Class)

Emily Vork is a sophomore from Ojai, California triple-majoring in History, Religious Studies, and American Studies. Her hobbies include eating and reading Internet comments. After declaring my second major in Religious Studies, I got asked a lot of questions from home. Whenever I’d tell someone about my new major, I’d always—without fail—receive one of two responses: “Oh, Religious Studies? That makes sense. You’re pretty religious,” or, “Religious Studies? That doesn’t make sense—I thought you were religious!” […]

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Reason to Be

“As professors in the Department of Religion, we are often asked by prospective students (and their parents) about the ‘Christian’ in Texas Christian University, or the ‘C,’ as they more often put it, in TCU…” So opens an interesting blog post that I think is well worth the read; for it tries to elaborate on the role of the study of religion at private denomination college — specifically, one affiliated with the Disciples of Christ. […]

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What Would I Ever Do with a Humanities Degree?

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 […]

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Chutzpah isn’t Hubris

I recall a conversation I once had, some years ago, about the possibility that our department might try to hire someone who worked on Asia, i.e., that we had submitted a proposal for such a position, but, of course, who knows if we’ll get it. The person with whom I spoke, who did his own work on Asia, replied, a little incredulously, that of course we’d get the position, no? After all, consider how important Asia is to understanding world […]

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