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Why Study Religion?: A Conversation About the Relevance of the Humanities

March 5, 2020 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Why study religion? What is useful about the skills we learn in humanities courses? Join us for a conversation with two early career scholars of religion about how they ended up studying religion, why they think the study of religion is valuable, and how the humanities continue to be relevant beyond the academy.

Our guests:

Travis CooperTravis Cooper holds a double PhD in Religious Studies and Anthropology and lectures at Butler University. His dissertation project, “The Digital Evangelicals: Contesting Authority and Authenticity after the New Media Turn,” examined religious boundary maintenance strategies in the era of social media. His current research focuses on the various social architectures that structure everyday American life-worlds, rituals, and traditions—systems ranging from media ideologies and print culture to the ideologies of urban design and the built environment. An ethnographer of the American Midwest, he studies (sub)urban habitudes, residential and religious architecture, and the anthropology of the modern.

 

Hannah ScheidtHannah Scheidt received her PhD from the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University in 2018 and her BA from Bowdoin College in 2010. Her dissertation, a cultural study of contemporary atheism, is titled Practicing Atheism: Culture, Media, and Ritual in the Contemporary Atheist Network. This project explores how atheism gains “affirmative” content (that is, meanings and associations beyond simply lack of belief in god) through a complex relationship with religion. Her work incorporates perspectives and methods from religious studies, media studies, and cultural studies. Hannah’s other research interests include secularism, religion and science, religion and media, transhumanism, and (recently) American craft and maker movements.

This event is an American Examples production.

 

Details

Date:
March 5, 2020
Time:
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Event Tags:
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Website:
americanexamples.ua.edu

Organizer

American Examples
Email
michael.altman@ua.edu
View Organizer Website