Department of Religious Studies
New & Noteworthy
Beginning Spring Term 2017, undergraduate majors will be able to structure their coursework around a set of dynamic "thematic clusters." These clusters will offer majors the opportunity to delve deeply into specific questions that engage them. Whether students are most fascinated by the intersections between religion and medicine; the role that religion plays in politics, social justice or environmental concerns; the relationship between religion and creative expression; or the religious aspects of philosophical or ethical questions, the newly designed major enables the investigation of these ideas comprehensively and from a variety of perspectives. Please contact our DUS, Dr. Rachel Kranson to learn more.
SEPTEMBER EVENTS
9/29/2016: Religious Diversity and the Presidential Elections, a roundtable discussion with members of the Department of Religous Religious Studies. 6:00p, FFA Auditorium
NEW COURSES FOR FALL 2016
RELGST 1405: Religion and Sexuality
RELGST 1452: Hymns to HipHop—Sounds of Islam
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Brock Bahler, Childlike Peace in Merleau-Ponty and Levinas: Intersubjectivity as Dialectical Spiral (Lexington, 2016). PODCAST interview with the author.
Jeanette S. Jouili, Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe (Stanford, 2015). INTERVIEW with the author.
Rachel Kranson coedits special issue of the Journal of Jewish Identities 8.2 (July 2015) on “Jewish Youth in the Global 1960.”
Linda Penkower coedits Hindu Rituals at the Margins: Innovations, Transformations, Reconsiderations (USCP, 2014)
Adam Shear coedits Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of David B. Ruderman (HUCP/Pitt Press, 2014)
Clark Chilson, Secrecy's Power: Covert Shin Buddhists in Japan and Contradictions of Concealment, Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture (UHP, 2014).
Paula Kane, Sister Thorn and Catholic Mysticism in Modern America (UNC Press, 2013). PODCAST interview with the author.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES PROJECTS
Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place
Adam Shear, along with his collaborators, launched the pilot database of Footprints, a long-term digital humanities project that focuses on the circulation of Hebraica and Judaica in early modern Europe and the Middle East.
The Meyers Excavations Digital Archives Project
Ben Gordon and his collaborators are developing a website that presents artifacts and archaeological remains through a series of interactive maps of a rich archive of archaeological data from the Galilee region of northern Israel. The data derives from nearly three decades of excavation seasons led by Carol Meyers and Eric Meyers (Duke University).
HONORS AND AWARDS
Ben Gordon named head, Roman/Late Roman Period Research for the Tel Shimron Excavations, led by the University of Tel Aviv and Wheaton College.
Emily Stewart wins an AY 2017 Mellon Fellowship for dissertation research on "The Turn to Human Rights: David M. Stowe, Liberal Protestantism, and Postcolonial Mission in the 20th Century."
Lianghao Lu wins the 2016 C.Y. Hsu Summer Fellowship for dissertation research on "Periodicals and the Making of Modern China."
Adam Shear named coeditor of the journal AJS (Association for Jewish Studies) Review.
Linda Penkower named president of the EIRAAR 2016; Emily Stewart named 2016 EIRAAR conference coordinator.
Adam Shear wins 2015 Special Initiative to Promote Scholarly Activities in the Humanities for the digital humanities project "Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time And Space."
Rebecca Denova wins 2015 CGS Students' Choice Award.
Tucker Ferda (PhD 2016) selected as a 2015 Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Regional Scholar, which recognizes promising younger scholars in the field of biblical studies. Open to junior faculty and graduate students, Tucker was selected as one of only three Regional Scholars in US and Canada for 2015.
Emily Stewart wins the 2015 Best Graduate Student Paper Award, Eastern International Region/American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, for “Evangelizing the World (Wide Web): Christian Mission in Digital Contexts.”
Keep up-to-date on Religious Studies news, events, scholarship and other opportunities for undergraduates and majors. LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
Why STEM majors should also consider Religious Studies
The Top Five Reasons to Study Religion
FROM THE "BLOG" (Huffington Post)
"Why I Left the Right: How Studying Religion Made Me a Liberal," by Susie Meister (PhD, Religious Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2014)