Photo: Craig Hawkins via Flickr Peyton Manning loves Omaha. Or at least the Denver Broncos quarterback loves to yell “OMAHA!” just before the start of a play. Omaha is just one of the many words he and other quarterbacks yell just before the ball is snapped. Sometimes these words are audibles, quick changes of the play the team is about to run. Sometimes they are meaningless verbiage meant to confuse the other team. […]
Tag: theory
Theory in Practice
Several Facebook friends have recently re-posted this Guardian article, “Why Non-Believers Need Rituals Too.” Its argument is that humanists or atheists or agnostics — or whatever else we name this loosely (if at all) identified group, a group likely comprised by our very talking about it — need to give more attention to the aesthetics of their collective practices. Why? … because it is through ritual that we remake and strengthen our social bonds. […]
Finding or Fabricating?
Michael Pye, the onetime General Secretary of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), and respected specialist in the study of Japanese religions, recently presented a keynote lecture — “Digging for Theory” — at a conference at the University of Göttingen, Germany. […]
Working, Not Wonking
There’s an interesting moment near the end of a new online interview with the Duke University’s David Morgan, Chair of his Department, when he reveals far more than he might imagine. […]
Curios and Classrooms
By Kim Davis Kim Davis earned her B.A. in French and Religious Studies from the University of Alabama in 2003. She went on to get her Masters in French Linguistics and Literature in 2007 and a Masters in Secondary Language Pedagogy in 2010, both from UA. Kim now teaches French and Mythology at Tuscaloosa County High School. I’m a collector. The picture above is of Kenner Star Wars action figures that I have kept until I had a house to […]
I’m Rubber, You’re Glue
Definitions of the Humanities are themselves a curious thing, inasmuch as they often raise more issues than they settle. For example, consider this definition as found on the website for the US’s main Federal funding source for research in this area, the National Endowment for the Humanities: […]