Responsibility – Studying Religion in Culture

Historic Artifact? An Open Letter to Department Search Committees from 1997

September 15, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

The following (co-written with my then co-editor at the now defunct Bulletin of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, the late Tim Murphy), first appeared as an open letter in our inaugural issue (26/1 [1997]) and was then reproduced as the appendix to chapter 6 of The Discipline of Religion (2003). Though many things about the academic labor market may have changed over the past 20 years (e.g., many universities have moved to online application systems, complete […]

Come One, Come All?

September 14, 2015 by Russell McCutcheon

Occasionally I see a job ad, in our field, that has an open rank, stating that people at different career stages/ranks are invited to apply, or an ad so general that I’m not sure what the search committee is wanting. These ads strike me as rather problematic, for a few reasons. […]

On The Passive Voice and Nonexistent Agency

March 17, 2015 by admin

Thomas J. Whitley is a Ph.D. Candidate in Religions of Western Antiquity at Florida State University where he studies sexual slander and identity formation in early Christianity. You can read more of his work on his blog and you can follow him on Twitter for the daily minutiae of his life @thomaswhitley. “C.I.A. Funds Found Their Way Into Al Qaeda Coffers” — so read the New York Times notification I received Saturday. The circumlocution was amusing. “Found their way” — […]