study religion – Studying Religion in Culture

Examples: Why Would a Religious Studies Scholar Study That?

September 9, 2022 by Michael Altman

We are really cranking out the podcast series on our Study Religion podcast here in REL. One of our latest podcast series is an American Examples and RELdl production hosted by Religion in Culture MA student and American Examples fellow, Ciara Eichhorst. It’s called “Examples” and it’s a podcast that explores what we have come to call the “examples approach” to studying religion in culture. The examples approach sees specific case studies of religion in America as opportunities for investigating […]

Behind the Scenes of ‘Uncivil Religion’ with Our MA Students

March 9, 2022 by admin

In January the Department of Religious Studies, in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, launched the digital project Uncivil Religion. Three MA students in our Department’s Religion in Culture program worked alongside Prof. Mike Altman to build the website for the project. In the latest episode of the Study Religion podcast, fellow MA student Erica Bennet sat down with those three students to hear about their experiences working on Uncivil Religion and what went into building the […]

Study Religion Podcast: Making the Jump Part 2 w/ Shayna Sheinfeld

December 16, 2019 by Michael Altman

This is the second in our three episode series that features interviews with people who decided to take a risk and make a jump in their careers. They found new ways to use their training in religious studies and made their own path. In this episode we talk with Shayna Sheinfeld about her work as an academic coach, what exactly an academic coach is, and how she found her way to her work. Find out more about Dr. Sheinfeld and […]

Study Religion Ep. 10: Making the Jump Part 1 w/ Tenzan Eaghll

October 14, 2019 by Michael Altman

The Study Religion podcast is back! This is the first of three episodes that feature interview with people who decided to take a risk and make a jump in their careers. They found new ways to use their training in religious studies and made their own path. In this episode we talk with Tenzan Eaghll who teaches at Mahidol University in Thailand. Hear how he made the jump and landed halfway around the world. […]

Study Religion Podcast: Episode 8 Guests

May 25, 2018 by Michael Altman

The latest episode of the REL podcast, Study Religion, is now available wherever you get your podcasts. This episode gives a glimpse into the guests we have had visit the department this past spring. Every year our department welcomes guests who come and give lectures or visit with faculty and students. This past semester we had two excellent guests visit the department as part of our lecture series. First, Dr. Elijah Siegler was our Zachary Day Memorial Lecturer and gave an […]

MA Students Taking Over the Study Religion Podcast

December 20, 2017 by Michael Altman

Our podcast has been taken over. For the latest episode of Study Religion, we’ve turned it over to our MA students–Emma Gibson, Sarah Griswold, and Sierra Lawson. This Fall these students were all part of our MA foundations course REL 502: Religious Studies and Public Humanities. In the course the students learned to use digital tools and our field’s main professional organization, the American Academy of Religion (AAR) served all semester as the example on which they applied these tools […]

The AAR Conference Stories Project

October 25, 2017 by Michael Altman

As part of our REL 502 Religionus Studies and Public Humanities foundations course, our graduate students are putting together a collection of stories about people’s experiences at the annual American Academy of Religion national meeting. The AAR is more than an academic conference, it’s also a social and cultural event and we want to try and capture the aspects of the meeting that don’t show up on the conference program. We will take the best stories we can gather and use […]

The Study Religion Podcast is BACK!

October 24, 2017 by Michael Altman

The first episode of our department podcast, Study Religion, for the new school year is all about, well, firsts. I talk to our first cohort of graduate students in the new Religion in Culture MA program about being the first students in a new program and how the first semester is going. Next I sit down with Prof. Vaia Touna to talk about a big first in her career: her first book. We also talk about how societies use the […]

Study Religion: The Podcast Episode 2 “Turkey Ritual”

March 21, 2017 by Michael Altman

In this episode we think about the ways we categorize things as religion. The show begins with the ritual life of turkeys and what that tells us about the category “religion.” Then a few REL majors show us how the category “sacrifice” is all around us. Finally, host Michael Altman talks with Dr. Megan Goodwin (@mpgphd) about the new CNN show Believer and how religious studies can find a broader public audience. […]