Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 25 Jan 2013
Announcement – the commencement of a new three-year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) that is to be jointly held by Cardiff University and the University of Edinburgh. It is entitled:
The Story of Story in Early South Asia: Character and Genre across Hindu, Buddhist and Jain Narrative Traditions
It involves Dr. Naomi Appleton and Dr. James Hegarty and will focus on sources in Sanskrit, Pali and,
Is There a Christian Agenda Behind Religious Studies Departments?
“[Martin] alludes to a greater problem: the imbalance of power, the greater influence of Christianity in Western academia, compared with other religions, both major and minor.”
A version of this post was published earlier today with a couple of minor but important changes made by Chris and mistakenly not communicated to the author. These unauthorised changes have been removed, and the version presented below meets with the approval of both Mr Lataster and the editors.
Biblical Studies and Religious Studies
What is the relationship between Religious Studies and the study of the Christian New Testament? Although RS is often considered to be “studies of thee other religions”, Biblical Studies also offers a way into the broader theoretical and definitional issues in the study of religions. As Dale B. Martin explains to Jack Tsonis,…
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 18 Jan 2013
And don’t forget, you can always get involved with the Religious Studies Project by writing one of our features essays or resources pages. Contact the editors for more information.
THE NETWORK FOR THE STUDY OF ESOTERICISM IN ANTIQUITY
AncientEsotericism.org is the website for the Network for the Study of Esotericism in Antiquity (NSEA), a thematic group associated with the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE).
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 11 Jan 2013
Religion and Knowledge: Sociological Perspectives, edited by Mathew Guest and Elisabeth Arweck, was published by Ashgate in November 2012.
This is the collection of essays that grew out of the annual Socrel conference in Durham in 2009, and features essays on new atheism by Teemu Taira and on retention of fundamentalist beliefs in the context of teaching evolution to school pupils by Ryan Cragun and colleagues.
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 28 Dec 2012
Description: We are happy to announce that the application period for the Leo Baeck Summer University 2013 has begun.The Leo Baeck Summer University is an English-language six-week summer school in Jewish studies at the Humboldt University, Berlin, under the auspices of the new Zentrum fr Jdische Studien Berlin- …
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 7 Dec 2012
CFP: The problem of human knowledge – what a person employs to interpret and act on the world – has been in the centre of scholarly attention for a long time. Knowledge is shaped by culture and distributed in population in certain ways; anthropological research has been directed to the distribution of knowledge – its presence or absence in particular persons – and the social processes influencing these distributions.
An Astrology (and Spiritualities) for the Modern
“Campion’s suggestion of Theosophical astrology being an astrology for the modern, in the context of a revision of the Enlightenment and ‘modernity’, sheds light on the place of alternative, holistic, and esoteric spiritualities in the modern world.”
[Theosophical astrology] is an astrology of modernity’, suggests Nick Campion in his interview with the Religious Studies Project. However, before even coming to this suggestion,
Astrology
If statistics are to be believed, close to 100% of people in the UK know their astrological sun-sign. But what is astrology, exactly? Is it merely a “survival” from the medieval worldview, and what is its relationship to modernity and scientific thought? Most pertinently, does it have something profound to tell us about the nature of popular belief, or vernacular religion?
Book Review – Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life (M. Bowman & Ü Valk, eds)
VERNACULAR RELIGION IN EVERYDAY LIFE: EXPRESSIONS OF BELIEF Bowman, M. and Valk, Ü. (Eds.), 2012: Equinox, Sheffield, UK Reviewed for The Religious Studies Project (RSP) by David Gordon Wilson. Published 30 November 2012. This review also forms part of book review podcast, recorded by the RSP, available here. This book is a valuable contribution to […]
Why should we keep paying attention to Otto?
“Is it necessary, helpful even, to only study religion if you are not religious? Does the secular scholar of, say Hinduism, stand to be a better scholar than another with the same training but who happens to personally be Hindu? Does having a personal involvement in the group that one is studying assist one in understanding Otto’s numinous?”
In this interview with Robert Orsi, Religious Studies Professor from Northwestern University, Jonathon and Dr. Orsi discuss the seemingly evergreen writer Rudolf Otto.
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 9 November 2012
Asian Literature and Translation (ALT) is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal established by the Centre for the History of Religion in Asia (CHRA), Cardiff University. The main objective of the journal is to publish research papers, translations, and reviews in the field of Asian religious literature (construed in the widest sense) in a form that makes them quickly and easily accessible to the international academic community, to professionals in related fields, such as theatre and storytelling, and to the general public.
Secular Sacreds and the Sacred Secular
“Reframing understandings of (non)religion according to types of sacred which are independent of religious categories, allows (non)religious identities to be conceptualised to acknowledge the simultaneous intersection of multiple subjectively compatible (yet seemingly contradictory) religious and/or nonreligious identities, and paves the way for scholars to take religion seriously whilst avoiding unwarranted reverence.”
Multiplying The Modernities: Reflections on the 2012 AASR/AABS Conference
“Overall, the conference featured ninety speakers, presenting one presidential address, two memorial lectures, and eighty-eight papers. They covered an impressive array of topics, from the spiritual aspects of home-birthing, to the phenomenon of Christians that seek membership of outlaw motorcycle clubs, to religious pilgrimage in Myanmar, and Shariah in the context of Australian law.”
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 2 November 2012
Description: Applications are now being accepted for the e-learning course, Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Europe: Modern Challenges. Following two successful years, the course will commence in late February 2013. More than fifty participants from around the world – Australia and New Zealand, China, Japan,….