Tag: Russell McCutcheon


The Jim Salem Chair Award Goes to REL

We’re very pleased to announce that, at the year-end A&S chairs event over the weekend, Dean Robert Olin presented the annual Jim Salem Chair Award to REL’s own Prof. Russell McCutcheon. Instituted by the Dean after the death, in July of 2012, of the longtime American Studies Department Chair, Jim Salem, the award recognizes “outstanding leadership to students, faculty, and the College.” Salem, who chaired the search committee that brought Dean Olin to UA, was known for his enthusiasm, dry […]

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Culture on the Edge: An Origin Story

Last week, Professors Steven Ramey and Vaia Touna sat down to discuss their involvement with the Culture on the Edge research group and blog, along with their two book series. Though the discussion was intended to focus on Prof. Touna’s recent addition to the published series, it naturally led to a conversation on the implications of fabricating origins and identity. […]

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Prof. McCutcheon has Lots of Pots on the Stove

Prof. Russell McCutcheon, who came to UA as the REL Department Chair in the summer of 2001, sometimes says that the career of a scholar involves keeping a lot of pots boiling, all at a different rates. The trick is knowing which can just simmer, on the back burner, and which ones need attention because they’re about to boil over. Well, this year four pots that were each bubbling away on their own resulted in some new books, all of […]

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Summer Plans: Prof. McCutcheon

We asked the faculty what they were up to this summer; after all, just because the Spring semester is done doesn’t mean they’re all off gardening. And so this is what we learned… Apart from writing the annual report and getting the Department ready for the new semester in the Fall, Professor McCutcheon has a few projects bubbling away, such as the second edition to his intro book, Studying Religion, which he plans to tackle and complete this summer. He’s […]

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Constructing Judaism and Claiming Christianity: Modern Jewish Philosophy in an Age of Theory

Robert Erlewine is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Illinois Wesleyan University where he teaches courses related to philosophy of religion and Judaism. He is the author of two monographs, Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010) and Judaism and the West: From Hermann Cohen to Joseph Soloveitchik (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016). In recent years, in the academic study of religion there have been rather public disputes about the nature of religious […]

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Report from the Public Universities Chairs Workshop

Dr. Kevin Schilbrack (pictured above, right) is a professor of Religious Studies and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University. He was recently at the University of Alabama for the inaugural workshop for public university Religious Studies department chairs and offers the following report. Like many other department chairs, I suspect, I became chair after years of teaching, writing, and generally being collegial – but I received little or no training on how to be […]

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#LoungeTweets with Dr. McCutcheon on Wednesday

Our next #LoungeTweets event is coming up, and this time Dr. Russell McCutcheon has answered the call of duty! He’ll be hanging out in the REL lounge on Wednesday, April 22nd from 2:30-3:30 to respond to your questions, give us a play-by-play of lounge activities, and more. Follow him at @McCutcheonSays. Follow @McCutcheonSays // Keep up with the live tweets by searching #LoungeTweets. Tweet #LoungeTweets // […]

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Voting is over: McCutcheon Says It’s @McCutcheonSays

(The official soundtrack to this post.) Thanks to everyone who voted. After all the votes were counted and the local board of elections argued over hanging chads, we have dubbed a winner. You can now find Dr. Russell Mccutcheon on Twitter at @McCutcheonSays.  So know your role and tweet at him. Follow @McCutcheonSays // […]

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