The third of a three-part series on students’ reflections written as part of a final assignment in Prof. Vaia Touna’s REL 100 “Introduction to the Study of Religion” in Fall 2022. […]
REL100 in Retrospect, Part 3
Tag: Vaia Touna
REL100 in Retrospect, Part 2
The first of a three-part series on students’ reflections written as part of a final assignment in Prof. Vaia Touna’s REL 100 “Introduction to the Study of Religion” in Fall 2022. […]
REL100 in Retrospect, Part 1
The first of a three-part series on students’ reflections written as part of a final assignment in Prof. Vaia Touna’s REL 100 “Introduction to the Study of Religion” in Fall 2022. […]
Faculty and Staff Honors 2021
Honors Day, last week, is an annual opportunity not just to celebrate student successes but also to recognize REL faculty and staff accomplishments. But, given our continued concern for hosting in-person events, we again relied on a video, created once again by Prof. Richard Newton (with the help of a variety of faculty), to celebrate another year — one full of challenges, to be sure, but one in which we saw the members of the Department going above and beyond […]
Coming Soon: American Examples
Just after Spring Break, the first American Examples Workshop will be hosted at the University of Alabama, funded jointly by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Religious Studies. Held here in Tuscaloosa and organized by Prof. Michael Altman, the goal of the workshop is to rethink the way religion in America is studied and taught. […]
Alabama-Greece Initiative Lecture Coming Up
On Wednesday, March 6th, the Department of Religious Studies will be hosting Prof. Ioannis Xydopoulos from Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece. His visit is part of the Alabama-Greece Initiative, a program that promotes relationships between American and Greek scholars. Beginning in 2010 and sponsored by the University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences, the initiative encourages the exchange of students and faculty for study abroad, research, and guest lectures. […]
Prof. Touna Prepares for Norway
This summer, Prof. Vaia Touna will travel to Trondheim, Norway to participate in a Religious Studies Conference hosted by NAASR and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The lectures will focus on critiquing the work of Prof. Jonathan Z. Smith, a religious studies scholar at the University of Chicago who passed away in December 2017. His expansive work in the field frequently complicated classification and description (among other scholarly tools) and provided reform for modern pedagogy. […]
REL Grad Hosts Career Workshop
Last week, Khara Cole, who graduated from UA with a degree in Public Relations and Religious Studies in 2013, lead current students in a career workshop. The casual meeting launched last year as an RSSA initiative and continued this year (organized by Prof. Vaia Touna). The presentation covered everything from resume structure to LinkedIn formatting, and even nonverbal communication during interviews. […]
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. […]
Scholars Around a Campfire: Understanding Strategic Acts of Identification
Culture on the Edge, a group of scholars studying acts of identity formation and centered here at the University of Alabama, has a new book forthcoming in its series, Studies of Identity Formation. This book, Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity: Toward a Dynamic Theory of People and Place, edited by our own Prof. Vaia Touna, is set for publication in January 2019. […]
Read More from Scholars Around a Campfire: Understanding Strategic Acts of Identification