American Academy of Religion
120 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★ - 4 ratingsThe audio feed of American Academy of Religion (AAR), the world's largest scholarly and professional association of academics, teachers, and research scholars dedicated to furthering knowledge of religions and religious institutions in all their forms and manifestations. Featuring interviews with award-winning scholars and sessions recorded during the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion.
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Episodes
Protecting the Vulnerable on Campus - Academic Labor, LGBTIQ Persons, and Grad Students
May 10, 2018 18:18 - 2 hours - 202 MBFor many of us who study or work in colleges and seminary campuses today it may be easy to ignore the vulnerable at our institutions. Yet the most vulnerable are often at risk or subject to discrimination and exploitation based on inequities of power, money, lack of social net, or means to voice their concerns about campus life and work. This panel examines what needs attention and the strategies that vulnerable people and their allies can use to decrease vulnerability and increase solidarity...
2017 Plenary Address: Deval Patrick
May 03, 2018 20:30 - 33 minutes - 46 MBDeval Patrick is a politician, civil rights lawyer and businessman who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He is the only African-American to have served as governor of Massachusetts. Born to and raised by a single mother on the South Side of Chicago, Patrick attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. After graduating, he practiced law with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later joine...
2017 Marty Forum: Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
April 26, 2018 18:42 - 1 hour - 108 MBWinnifred Fallers Sullivan is the recipient of the 2017 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion. Sullivan is professor and chair of religious studies, and affiliate professor of law, at Indiana University at Bloomington. Sullivan’s work focuses on the phenomenology of religion under the modern rule of law, and she is widely known for her critical studies of American law and jurisprudence about religion. She is the author of four books: Paying the Words Extra: Religious ...
Recolonizing the Academy Under a Trump Presidency
April 19, 2018 20:49 - 1 hour - 127 MBThis panel analyzes the intensified colonization of academic spaces—both intellectual and physical—under the current presidency. How do we accurately map these changes and negotiate these spaces in an era of national “whitelash” from peripheral ideological and embodied spaces? How do we contend with the increasing marginalization and targeting of vulnerable populations? What strategies might scholars use to contribute to the ongoing process of decolonizing the academy? What are the potential ...
Another Plan “A”: Religious Studies and Careers Beyond the Academy
April 12, 2018 17:55 - 1 hour - 164 MBWorried about the job market? Thinking that a career in higher ed no longer matches your interests and goals? Or just wondering about options? The American Academy of Religion's Applied Religious Studies Committee hosts a discussion on career paths outside the academy. Panelists discuss fields including: publishing and editing, freelance writing, nonprofits and foundations, government, religious communities, academic administration, and more; and current PhD candidates talk about their own ...
Lena Salaymeh on Critiques and New Directions in Studying Islamic Legal Traditions
April 05, 2018 19:47 - 24 minutes - 44.3 MBLena Salaymeh joins Religious Studies News to talk about her 2017 AAR award-winning book, "The Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions." Salaymeh is interviewed by Kristian Petersen. Her book won the 2017 Award for the Excellence in the Study of Religion in the textual studies category.
Inside the State Department: Scholars Reflect on Working for the Government
March 29, 2018 21:05 - 2 hours - 195 MBWhat's it like to work in the US Department of State? How is academic knowledge about religion practical to public policymakers? What are the ethical implications of engaging?and of declining to engage?in such work? What seems to be the future of such work in this area. Three of the panelists recently completed a year or more as an AAR-Luce Fellow in the US Department of State: in the Office of Religion and Global Affairs, Evan Berry focused on the environment, and Jerome Copulsky on anti-Sem...
2017 Annual Meeting Plenary: Linda Sarsour
March 22, 2018 17:38 - 57 minutes - 78.8 MBLinda Sarsour is a working woman, racial justice and civil rights activist, and mother of three. Ambitious, outspoken and independent, Linda shatters stereotypes of Muslim women while also treasuring her religious and ethnic heritage. She is a Palestinian Muslim American and a self-proclaimed “pure New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn!” She is the Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York and co-founder of the first Muslim online organizing platform, MPOWER Change. Li...
Reformation and Reformations
March 15, 2018 18:01 - 2 hours - 211 MBThe Reformed Theology and History Group and the Martin Luther and the Global Lutheran Traditions Group host a joint panel on the meaning of 'Reformation' and what implications the notion of 'Reformation' or 'reformations' has for us today—theologically or ecclesially. Panelists explore the relevance of 'reformation/s' for the contemporary context, including ways in which aspects of the Protestant Reformation deserve retrieval, reframing, or retraction today. Panelists: - Amy Plantinga Pauw, ...
Religion on Television: Production, Positives and Perils/Pitfalls
March 01, 2018 20:50 - 1 hour - 147 MBThis panel is on the different approaches scholars of religion are taking in presenting religion and the study of religion to a wider audience on television. Reza Aslan (Prayer in America, The Secret Life of Muslims, and Believer), Amir Hussain (The Story of God with Morgan Freeman), Candida Moss (Bible Secrets Revealed, Greatest Mysteries, and Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery), Vanessa Ochs (Religion and Ethics Newsweekly), and Stephen Prothero (God in America) are all experts in this are...
Career Services for Nonacademic Careers
February 22, 2018 18:22 - 1 hour - 121 MBWhen humanities scholars talk about exploring and pursuing "alt-ac" and "post-ac" careers, two concerns often dominate the conversation: 1) Graduate studies in the humanities don't prepare us for or aren't relevant to non-academic career paths, and 2) We don't know where to look for or how to apply for non-academic jobs. Whether you are a scholar thinking about non-academic careers or a faculty member interested in supporting students engaged in such searches, join our panel of career service...
Existentialism, Authenticity, and Asceticism with Noreen Khawaja
February 15, 2018 20:37 - 27 minutes - 50.8 MBNoreen Khawaja talks to Religious Studies News about her book "The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre" (University of Chicago Press), which won the American Academy of Religion’s 2017 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies. Music is Dexter Britain, “Fresh Monday” (www.dexterbritain.co.uk)
2017 AAR Presidential Address - Eddie Glaude: Religion and the Most Vulnerable
February 08, 2018 20:02 - 44 minutes - 60.6 MBEddie S. Glaude Jr. is the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. He is chair of the Department of African American Studies, a program he first became involved with shaping as a doctoral candidate in Religion at Princeton. His books on religion and philosophy include African American Religion: A Very Short Introduction, Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black Ame...
"Goddess and God in the World": An Embodied Theological Conversation
September 21, 2017 21:23 - 2 hours - 135 MBTaking off from their new book, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology (Fortress, 2016), Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow introduce their embodied theological method and explore their theological differences: Is Goddess a personal presence who cares about the world? Or is God an impersonal creative energy equally supportive of good and evil? Mary E. Hunt will moderate a conversation that includes Monica Coleman, Aysha Hidayatullah, Miranda Shaw, and Julia Watts-Bel...
Black Liberation Theologies of Disability
September 08, 2017 00:23 - 2 hours - 130 MBBuilding upon a 2015 conference on Black Liberation Theologies of Disability at Union Theological Seminary, organized by Kendrick Kemp, this session attempts to construct liberation theologies that take seriously the experiences of blackness and disability. Panelists explore the ways that racialized and disabled embodiment offers innovative readings of text, tradition, and theological frameworks. What resources for a black liberation theology of disability can be sourced from black religious ...
Writing Religion Online: Scholars and Journalists in Conversation (SBLAAR16)
August 24, 2017 19:07 - 1 hour - 123 MBOver the past decade there has been an explosion of online religion writing. New publications continue to emerge and, with them, new kinds of writing and writers. There are more and more ways for scholars to share their expertise and knowledge with academic and popular audiences alike. At the same time, there are a growing number of journalists interested in covering religion well. Not only are these two fields growing, but they are starting to intersect and even blur. This conversation bring...
Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report Roundtable Discussion
August 17, 2017 21:11 - 2 hours - 150 MBAn Author-Meets-Critics Roundtable Session discussing Saba Mahmood’s recently published book, "Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report" (Princeton University Press, 2016). Bringing together both senior and junior scholars invested in questions of secularism and secularity from varied disciplinary and thematic perspectives including American religious history, the study of Sikhism, Middle East politics, and modern Arabic literature, this panel will wrestle with the key themes,...
2016 Plenary Address: Michelle Alexander with Kelly Brown Douglas
August 03, 2017 18:38 - 1 hour - 82.5 MBMichelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar. Alexander is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Stanford Law School. Following law school, she clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Abner Mikva on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to entering academia, Alexander served as the director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California, where she coordinated the Proje...
Religion, Immigration, and Politics: North American and European Perspectives
July 27, 2017 20:51 - 1 hour - 117 MBAM 2016: This panel provides some comparative insights on the current situation in Europe alongside experiences in the USA, exploring how religion is located within these debates, for instance as a foundation for appeals to national or civilizational identities that exclude certain groups, as well as a means for overcoming conflict and providing support and advocacy for vulnerable immigrant communities. What are the implications of defining refugees/immigrants in terms of their faith and ethn...
Fatemeh Keshavarz: Unsilencing the Sacred – Poetic Conversations with the Divine
July 20, 2017 19:35 - 1 hour - 96 MBAAR's 2016 American Lectureship in the History of Religions was held by Iranian academic and poet Fatemeh Keshavarz, who at this session at the 2016 AAR Annual Meeting, delivers her capstone lecture. Born and raised in the city of Shiraz, completed her studies in Shiraz University, and University of London. She taught at Washington University in St. Louis for over twenty years where she chaired the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from 2004 to 2011. In 2012, Kes...
Reclaiming the Radical Revolutionary: Celebrating Obery Hendricks' "The Politics of Jesus"
July 13, 2017 21:40 - 2 hours - 140 MBTo commemorate and celebrate the ten year anniversary of Obery Hendricks' "The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted" (Doubleday, 2006), Hendricks is joined by a panelist of activists, academics, scholars, and pastors convene a roundtable to discuss the influential nature of this work. Panelists: - Andre E. Johnson, University of Memphis, Presiding - Eboni Marshall Turman, Yale University - Reverend Jesse Jackson,...
2016 Presidential Address: Serene Jones on Revolutionary Love
July 06, 2017 18:05 - 50 minutes - 45.9 MBSerene Jones was the 2016 president of the American Academy of Religion and the sixteenth President of the historic Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. The first woman to head the 179-year-old interdenominational seminary, Jones occupies the Johnston Family Chair for Religion and Democracy and has formed Union’s Institute for Women, Religion, and Globalization as well as the Institute for Art, Religion, and Social Justice. Jones came to Union after seventeen years at Yale Univ...
Father J. Bryan Hehir: 2016 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion Forum
June 30, 2017 17:53 - 1 hour - 117 MBJ. Bryan Hehir was the 2016 recipient of the Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion. Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is also the Secretary for Health Care and Social Services in the Archdiocese of Boston. His research and writing focus on ethics and foreign policy and the role of religion in world politics and in American society. The Marty...
Preparing Scholars for Nonacademic Careers: What's a Faculty Member to Do?
June 21, 2017 20:47 - 1 hour - 102 MBA companion to our last episode, which focused on what students can do to prepare for nonacademic careers, this podcast highlights how religious studies faculty and graduate programs can create a variety of career paths for their students. In recent years as the job market for tenure-track academic positions has tightened and the use of contingent faculty has exploded, increasing numbers of graduate degree seekers are intending to pursue nonacademic careers. While some areas of study present ...
Preparing for a Nonacademic Career: What's a Scholar to Do?
June 08, 2017 20:36 - 1 hour - 151 MBWorried about the job market? Thinking that a career in higher ed no longer matches your interests and goals? Or just wondering about options? The panelists in this discussion hold or are working on masters and doctoral degrees in a variety of religious studies and theology programs and talk about fields including: publishing and editing; freelance writing; nonprofits and foundations; government; religious communities; academic administration; and more. They discuss their own experiences of e...
Revolutions of Love: The Politics and Flesh of Religion
June 01, 2017 20:32 - 1 hour - 138 MBThe presidential theme of the 2016 AAR Annual Meeting was "Revolutionary Love." The concept draws from various themes, traditions, and ideas. In this wildcard session, leading thinkers reflect on revolutionary love from nonviolence, queer, interreligious, and constructive theology perspectives. Karen Baker-Fletcher, Southern Methodist University, presiding Serene Jones, Union Theological Seminary, panelist Elaine Padilla, New York Theological Seminary, panelist John Thatamanil, Union Theolog...
Bhrigupati Singh on Questions of Secularity, Religion, and Quality of Life in Rural India
May 25, 2017 22:30 - 27 minutes - 50.9 MBBhrigupati Singh, assistant professor of anthropology at Brown University, speaks about how his examination of the Sahariyas, a tribe living in extreme poverty in Northwest India, stretches and blurs the boundaries of religion and secularity in studying how the tribespeople reflect on questions of ethics, happiness, and quality of life. His work encourages scholars of religion—particularly those engaging with nonwestern traditions—to develop a comparative vocabulary that goes beyond Eurocentr...
2016 AM: Cornel West's Neglected Contribution to the Pragmatist Canon
May 18, 2017 22:48 - 2 hours - 171 MBCornel West argues that pragmatism is the ideal philosophical view to address the ways in which ideas like race, gender and class are produced and redescribed in history. Pragmatism is ideal because it highlights history, context and problem solving. As a quintessentially American tradition, pragmatism’s canonical figures had not sufficiently wrestled with these quandaries in a way that would make sense to anyone who understood slavery, discrimination and segregation as problems worth solving...
AM 2016 Plenary Address: Julián Castro
April 28, 2017 15:14 - 56 minutes - 76.9 MBJulián Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama, speaks on housing, his childhood, and political action. Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado presides. This plenary session was recorded on November 21, 2016, in San Antonio, Texas, at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion.
AM 2016: Love and Hate in American Religion
April 13, 2017 20:47 - 1 hour - 83.1 MBThis panel, comprised of leading theological voices working across traditions and communities, will explore manifestations of "the hatreds of our day," their origins, their relation to religious thought and practice, and varied strategies available to disrupt their power. Drawing out the connections between hatred directed towards Latinos, African Americans, and Muslims will be central. Panelists: Eddie S. Glaude Mayra Rivera Amir Hussain Cornel West, Presiding
AM 2016: What’s Love Got to Do with It? Critical Appraisals of Love as a Civic Value
April 06, 2017 20:36 - 1 hour - 116 MBTaking up the AAR's 2016 plenary theme of "Revolutionary Love," participants in this session join a conversation addressing concerns with Christian privilege in a scholarly organization dedicated to “critical approaches to the study of religion.” This panel brings together a diverse group of scholars to consider the concept of love as a public or political force. Whose conception of love prevails (or is allowed to prevail) in public discourse? Is there something exclusively Christian about th...
AAR AM: Roundtable on Religion, Race, and the 2016 Elections
March 30, 2017 21:27 - 1 hour - 157 MBThis session was organized for the 2016 AAR Annual Meeting as a roundtable discussion between authors of recent major books that address issues of religion, race, and politics. Additionally, these authors have served as frequent public commentators on the 2016 election. Drawing upon on their research and experiences during the election cycle, the panelists discuss our understanding of the role that religion and race played in the election (e.g., the surprising white evangelical Protestant sup...
Christians and Zoroastrians in Ancient Iran – Richard E. Payne
March 23, 2017 20:40 - 26 minutes - 49.4 MBIn the Zoroastrian Empire of Iran during late antiquity, what were the limits of Christian identity? Richard E. Payne, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at the University of Chicago, explains how Christians were able to navigate the Iranian political world and how their identity as Christians did not necessarily preclude political participation in a thoroughly Zoroastrian empire. Payne is the author of "A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Irani...
Francis J. Beckwith on Reason, Faith, and Beliefmaking
March 09, 2017 23:26 - 21 minutes - 40 MBFrancis J. Beckwith, professor of philosophy & church-state studies at Baylor University, discusses how we form complex beliefs and if the difference between the process of developing so-called religious beliefs and secular beliefs might be smaller than we think. Beckwith is the author of "Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith" (Cambridge University Press, 2015). The book won the American Academy of Religion's 2016 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religio...
How Repentance Became Biblical: An Interview with David Lambert
December 22, 2016 19:09 - 23 minutes - 43.4 MBDavid A. Lambert talks to Religious Studies News about his book How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture (Oxford University Press), which won the American Academy of Religion’s 2016 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Textual Studies. Lambert's book "considers the development of repentance as a concept around the turn of the Common Era and how it came to be naturalized as an essential component of religion through a series of read...
Christianity in the Kingdom of Kongo: An Interview with Cécile Fromont
September 22, 2016 21:56 - 22 minutes - 40.6 MBIn 1491, the king of the west central African kingdom of Kongo was baptized as a Christian by Portuguese missionaries, and in so doing, he ushered a unique and centuries-long relationship between the Kongo kingdom and European political and religious powers. Cécile Fromont, assistant professor of art history at the University of Chicago, describes the unique beliefs and material culture of Christianity that developed in the kingdom as a result of the transatlantic trade of goods and ideas. C...
Mood, Emotion, and Affect in Hindu and Christian Theologies
July 08, 2016 15:04 - 19 minutes - 35.2 MBWhat can study of the beliefs and practices of one tradition bring to bear on another? Michelle Voss Roberts, associate professor of theology at Wake Forest University's divinity school, discusses how ethnographic study of Indian and South Asian Hindu rituals and aesthetics can bring new theological space to explore Christian practice. Using the Indian framework of "rasa," loosely defined as emotion or taste, Roberts suggests that Christian scholars, theologians, and practitioners can reexami...
Honoring Karen McCarthy Brown
June 16, 2016 18:43 - 1 hour - 60.9 MBThe 1991 publication of Karen McCarthy Brown’s “Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn,” now in its third edition, was a watershed contribution to the field of religious studies and became a perennial favorite among assigned textbooks. Brown’s exemplary ethnographic treatment of the religious practices of a Haitian immigrant humanized the adepts of this much-maligned African diaspora religion, and made social science methodology accessible to religious studies, a field theretofore dominated...
Ziba Mir-Hosseini with Diana Eck on Islamic Law, Gender, and Women's Rights (2015 Marty Award Forum)
June 02, 2016 20:38 - 1 hour - 80.2 MBScholar and filmmaker Ziba Mir-Hosseini, a specialist in Islamic law, gender and development and Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, University of London, is the recipient of the 2015 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion. At the Marty Forum, Professor Mir-Hosseini will be interviewed by Diana L. Eck, Harvard University. The Marty Award recognizes extraordinary contributions to the public understanding of religion. Michae...
Razi's Impact on the Islamic Tradition: A Conversation with Tariq Jaffer
May 19, 2016 21:00 - 19 minutes - 34.8 MBIn this interview, Tariq Jaffer talks about the subject of his award-winning 2014 book, Razi: Master of Qur'anic Interpretation and Theological Reasoning. Razi (1148–1210), a post-classical scholar, solidified the rational method of interpretation and reasoning in the Islamic tradition. Jaffer's book won the 2015 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the textual studies category.
Media Representations Of ISIS - ISIL
May 05, 2016 20:38 - 2 hours - 127 MBA 2015 article in The Atlantic by Graeme Wood - "What ISIS Really Wants" – and the controversy it has given rise to, has brought once again to the fore questions about the kind of role scholars of religion can legitimately and usefully play in ‘defining’ religion in the public square. Wood, citing heavily the work of the Princeton Scholar of religion Bernard Haykel, is of the view that ISIS is Islamic, rooted in the textual tradition its supporters employ to authenticate their actions. In a r...
Religious Liberty, The Supreme Court, RFRA, And RLUIPA
April 21, 2016 21:23 - 2 hours - 124 MBUsing the Hobby Lobby and Holt v. Hobbs Supreme Court decisions as a starting point, the panel will discuss the challenges of valuing religion in law, addressing such questions as: Do court decisions in cases such as Hobby Lobby and Holt v. Hobbs serve or undermine religious pluralism? When are religious exemptions to laws that apply generally to everyone warranted? How ought religious liberty be weighed against other rights (e.g., equal protection of the laws—LGBT rights)? How do the Supreme...
Chaplaincy, Secular Space, and the US Constitution: A Conversation with Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
March 31, 2016 20:45 - 16 minutes - 29.6 MBIn this conversation with Kristian Petersen, scholar Winnifred Fallers Sullivan discusses how the role of chaplains in the United States developed alongside understandings of the First Amendment. Chaplaincy, she argues, provides a legal solution to the fragile problem posed by the free exercise and establishment clauses in the Constitution. Sullivan is the author of "A Ministry of Presence: Chaplaincy, Spiritual Care, and the Law" (University of Chicago Press, 2014, which won the American Ac...
Tillich's Theological Legacies
March 24, 2016 19:22 - 2 hours - 322 MBJust over fifty years ago, on October 22, 1965, Paul Tillich died, just days after having given his final public lecture. Consideration of the theological endeavor between then and now highlights how seminal his thought has been within the field of religion. In contemporary parlance, it could be said that in many ways today’s Academy is Tillich gone viral. On this panel, leading scholars address how Tillich’s ideas have contributed to their work in religion and science, theology and culture, ...
Ebola, Africa, And Beyond: An Epidemic in Religious and Public Health Perspectives
March 07, 2016 16:23 - 2 hours - 343 MBThis roundtable brings together public health experts and religion scholars to ask what we can learn from the epidemic in relation to the potential of religion to help or hinder effective responses to threats like Ebola, both in and beyond Africa, and how religious studies can nuance public health understandings of African realities. Epidemics always highlight or exaggerate the power relations and inequalities that characterize everyday life--no less so in the case of the West African Ebola ...
The Value of Religious Studies in an Age of Budget Cuts
February 18, 2016 21:10 - 1 hour - 200 MBPressure on humanistic disciplines like religious studies is enormous in the modern academy. From budget cuts and threats of downsizing, the professionalization of students and the instrumentalization of higher ed, to the adjunctification of faculties and STEM orientations that demand ever-increasing career-oriented outcomes for graduates, religious studies departments are no longer self-justifying in many colleges and universities. This Special Topic Forum, recorded at the 2015 Annual Meeti...
Morality Without Religion: Empathy, Fairness, and Prosocial Primates
February 11, 2016 18:22 - 2 hours - 122 MBThis roundtable session features a discussion of Frans de Waal's Work on the theme of the development of "moral" practices outside of religion. Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is one of the world’s leading primatologists, known for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates. His book, The Bonobo and the Atheist, examines the origins and evolution of morality and the role of religion in human society. He is C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University an...
Anya Bernstein, Religious Bodies Politic: Rituals of Sovereignty in Buryat Buddhism
January 28, 2016 21:15 - 22 minutes - 40.6 MBAnya Bernstein talks to Religious Studies News about her book Religious Bodies Politic: Rituals of Sovereignty in Buryat Buddhism (University of Chicago Press), which won the American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Analytical-Descriptive Studies. Music is Dexter Britain, "Fresh Monday"(www.dexterbritain.co.uk)
The Study of Religion and Responses to Terrorism: Paris, Beirut, and Beyond
January 21, 2016 21:21 - 2 hours - 120 MBThis panel session was added to the 2015 AAR program only a week before the Annual Meeting in response to the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, France. The panel of scholars, whose areas of focus range from interreligious dialogue to political Islam to French secularism to ancient Christianity. They discuss the media, Islamophobia, religious violence, geopolitics, rational actors, and activism. They engage questions including: what are the connections between the Paris attacks, other re...
Valuing the Study of Religion: Thomas A. Tweed 2015 AAR Presidential Address
January 14, 2016 16:21 - 49 minutes - 45.8 MBIn this plenary 2015 AAR president Tom Tweed addresses urgent issues we face within and beyond the academy by asking about how the study of religion is valued. First, he analyzes how it is valued—and devalued—in the public arena and discerns what that can tell us about how to refine the usual arguments for the importance of the study of religion and, thereby, help endangered programs fare better in negotiations with administrators and stakeholders. Second, he encourages the Academy to identif...