REL 490.001
Capstone Senior Seminar
R | 3:30-5:50
MA 210
Download Syllabus
This semester REL’s Capstone Senior Seminar uses the work of one of our field’s most noted modern scholars, the University of Chicago’s Jonathan Z. Smith (1938-2017), to examine such field-wide issues as definition, description, comparison, and explanation—as a way to reflect on the tools that we, as scholars use, when going about our work, along with their possible implications.
Required of REL majors and usually taken in your last Spring semester.
Note: REL sets aside seats for majors so please contact the main office to obtain a permit to register.
Russell T. McCutcheon
- Office hours:
By appointment
- (205) 310-7546
- russell.mccutcheon@ua.edu

Readings
Jonathan Z. Smith
Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion
University of Chicago Press, 2004
Christpher Lehrich (ed.)
On Teaching Religion: Essays by Jonathan Z. Smith
Oxford University Press, 2013
Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon (eds.)
Reading Jonathan Z. Smith: Interviews and Essays, 1999-2013
Oxford University Press, 2018
(a pre-publication ms. will be distributed in class)
Resources
Essays
Lectures
Resources
Jonathan Z. Smith Obituaryy (Chicago Tribune)
In Memoriam: Jonathan Z. Smith (1938–2017)
Jonathan Z. Smith, Celebrated Historian of Religion, 1938-2017
Something I Learned from J.Z. Smith (ongoing series)
Introducing Religion: Essays in Honor of Jonathan Z. Smith (Routledge, 2008)
Jonathan Z. Smith’s 2008 Society of Biblical Literature Presidential Address