With Spring break right around the corner, during which little might be taking place on campus, but happening just as the nation-wide spread of the COVID-19 virus shows no signs of slowing down, we felt that it was necessary to be proactive and to think ahead a little, so that REL students, faculty, and staff know that at least a few things are settled for the coming weeks. Because the experts continue to tell us that not only regular hand-washing, […]
Tag: Undergraduate Research Symposium
Symposium Recap
Last week, the Department of Religious Studies hosted its annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at Gorgas Library. Students from Religious Studies courses collaborated with advisors on written projects before presenting their work at the event. The unique topics, challenging question-answer portion, and free coffee made for a refreshing Friday morning. Professors, alumni, MA students, and undergraduates used social media to keep up with the event. […]
Putting Our Symposium in Context
Yesterday was REL’s 6th annual undergrad research symposium, with six presenters and two of our grad students moderating. While some of the students are majors in REL, others carry out their work all across the university, though they’re all in our classes and so all of them are mulling over what it means to study religion in culture — something our Department been experimenting with and trying to model for almost 20 years. […]
Undergrad Research is on the Agenda
Join us tomorrow morning, Friday Feb. 22, for our 6th annual undergrad research symposium. It starts at 9 a.m. in room 205 of Gorgas Library (on the main floor). We have 6 students presenting their own original work (mentored by REL faculty), on two panels, and two of our M.A. students are presiding. […]
6th Annual Undergrad Research Symposium
REL is again hosting its undergrad research symposium, held this year in Gorgas Library 205, so there’s plenty of room to join us and hear some of the research that our students have been doing. It starts at 9:00 am Friday, February 22. There will be two panels (9-10 and 10:15-11:15), both of which are chaired by M.A. students in the Departments. And Prof. Crews is our host. Pictured above: the 5th annual event, held at the University Club in […]
It’s a busy week ahead
With spring break drawing to a close we’ve got a full week ahead of us: (1) Sarah Griswold will defend REL’s first M.A. thesis; it takes place Monday at 1:30 in Manly 210 — all faculty and grad students are invited, along with a small number of B.A. students who the faculty may have invited. (2) Our 5th annual research symposium takes place all Friday morning, upstairs at the University Club — all majors and minors are invited, along with […]
Celebrate Good Times
Yes, this semester we’re celebrating our Department’s 50th anniversary. If you’re interested in some of the historical background, then see this post from this past August. The short story is that UA’s Department of Religious Studies dates to 1932, as best we can tell, but only in 1966-7 did the university — just like public universities all across the US — make the changes necessary for students to study religion in a manner that satisfied the requirements of the US […]
Attention Budding Religious Studies Scholars
Fragonard, A Young Scholar (Wallace Collection) “Thoughts are the precious seeds of which our universities should be the botanical gardens. Beware when God lets loose a thinker on the world—either Carlyle or Emerson said that—for all things then have to rearrange themselves. But the thinkers in their youth are almost always very lonely creatures. ‘Alone the great sun rises and alone spring the great streams.’ The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker […]
Classroom to Conference: REL Majors Presenting Their Research
REL is very happy to announce that two of our students have been accepted to present their research at the Southeastern regional meeting of the American Academy of Religion in March. Jared Powell will be presenting a paper titled “And the Beat Goes On: Imaginings and Retellings of Han Shan by Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac.” The conference paper began as a project in Dr. Ramey‘s REL 419: Tales From Asia course. In the paper, he analyzes the ways in which […]
Read More from Classroom to Conference: REL Majors Presenting Their Research
A Great Start to a New Annual Event
Yesterday evening the Department hosted its first annual REL Honors Research Symposium that showcased our undergraduates’ own independent research. Our panelists Andie Alexander (a grad of REL), Jordan Atkinson, Seth Cox, Wesley Davidson, and Katelyn Smith presented their research—most of which was produced as a final paper for different courses in the department—on varying topics ranging from history and narrative, to religious/social identification, redefinition, and inter-generational differences. […]