Religious Studies News

Over 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 brings together scholars, journalists, and editors to talk about the present and future of online public writing about religion and to answer questions such as: “What does this work mean for the future of religious studies and for the thinking about religion beyond the academy?” and “How do we train scholars and journalists to get jobs and do them well?” Panelists: - Kali Handelman, Center for Religion and Media at New York University, presiding - Brook Wilensky-Lanford, Killing the Buddha, Chapel Hill, NC - Simran Jeet Sing

An 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, arguments, and conceptual interventions of this important book. It will also provide an opportunity to explore and engage new questions connected to modern secular governance, state sovereignty, minority rights, religious liberty, and the intersection of secularism, sexuality, and the family. Panelists: - SherAli Tareen, Franklin and Marshall College, presiding - Nermeen Mouftah, Northwestern University - Arvind Mandair, University of Michigan - Mona Oraby, Indiana University - John Modern, Franklin and Marshall College

Michelle 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 Project’s media advocacy, grassroots organizing, coalition building, and litigation. The Project’s priority areas were educational equity and criminal justice reform, and it was during those years at the ACLU that she began to awaken to the reality that our nation’s criminal justice system functions more like a caste system than a system of crime prevention or control. She became passionate about exposing and challenging racial bias in the criminal justice system, ultimately launching and leading a major campaign against racia

AM 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 ethnicity, including the ways in which this can fuel negative stereotypes? And how do we make sense of the ambiguous response of Christian churches/Christianity in both the USA and Europe in addressing issues around immigration? The panelists address these questions and others through comparative insights drawing upon the social and political sciences, as well as theological approaches. Panelists: - Emma Tomalin, University of Leeds - Atalia Omer, University of Notre Dame - Daniel Groody, University of Notre Dame - Jocelyne

AAR'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, Keshavarz joined the University of Maryland as Roshan Institute Chair in Persian Studies, and director of Roshan Institute for Persian Studies. Keshavarz is the author of award-winning books including "Reading Mystical Lyric: the Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi" (USC Press, 1998), "Recite in the Name of the Red Rose" (USC Press, 2006), and "Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than 'Lolita' in Tehran"(UNC Press, 2007). She has also published other books and numerous journal articles. Keshavarz is a published poet in Persian and Englis

To 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, Operation Push, Chicago, IL - Nyasha Junior, Temple University - Gary Dorrien, Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary - Keri Day, Brite Divinity School - Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown University - Obery M. Hendricks, Columbia University

Serene 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 University, where she was the Titus Street Professor of Theology at the Divinity School, and chair of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She holds degrees from the University of Oklahoma, Yale Divinity School, and Yale University. Jones is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. The author of several books including Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety and Trauma and Grace, Jones is a leading theologian who regularly contributes to scho

J. 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 Award recognizes extraordinary contributions to the public understanding of religion. Dr. Shaun Casey, former U.S. Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs at the United States State Department and current professor of the practice in Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, dialogues with Professor Hehir at the Forum. Michael Kessler, of Georgetown University, presides. This forum was recorded at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of religion on Sunday, November 20, in San An

A 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 obvious nonacademic options, for scholars in the humanities, nonacademic career opportunities and the best preparation for them may not be obvious and religious studies faculty are exploring how graduate programs can—and should—prepare all alumni for multiple employment outcomes. This panel brings together faculty members from a variety of institutions to discuss some of the problems confronting their students and their programs as more people turn—by necessity and by choice—to nonacademic career paths. Panelists: - Cris

Worried 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 exploring nonacademic career options in the context of their graduate studies, and they suggest the ways faculty, departments, and the AAR might better support scholars as they consider careers beyond the academy. An insightful Q&A with the audience follows. Panelists: – Cristine Hutchison-Jones, Administrative Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School – Jana Riess, writer and editor – J. Shawn Landres, Los Angeles County Quality and Productivity Commi

The 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 Theological Seminary, panelist Thomas Oord, Northwest Nazarene University, panelist Catherine Keller, Drew University, respondent This audio was recorded during the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion on November 20, in San Antonio, Texas.

Bhrigupati 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 Eurocentrism and Postcolonialism alike. Singh is the author of "Poverty and the Quest for Life: Spiritual and Material Striving in Rural India" (University of Chicago Press, 2015), which won the AAR's 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of analytical-descriptive studies.

Cornel 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. West’s "The American Evasion of Philosophy" (1989) focused on that insufficiency. For reasons that we explore in a panel devoted to his innovative text, West’s engagement with and expansion of the canon is worthy of the collective intellectual attention of those concerned with the persistence of problems that are best addressed when one evades quests for epistemic certainty. Panelists: Kevin Wolfe Clifton Granby Julius Crump Xavier Pickett Victor Anderson, Presiding This discussion was recorded at the 2016 Annual Mee

Julián 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.

This 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

Taking 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 the discourse of love? Are there analogues in other traditions? Is love a universal human value? What’s at stake among scholars of religion? Panelists: Amy M. Hollywood Russell T. McCutcheon Sarah Eltantawi David P. Gushee Arvind Sharma Mara Willard, Presiding This audio was recorded during the on November 21, 2016 during the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Antonio, Texas.

This 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 support for Donald Trump over Ted Cruz, the role of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, the Black Lives Matter movement, etc.), the impact of changing demographics of the electorate, and prospects and resources for coming together after a political season that promises to be one of the most polarizing and divisive in the modern era. Serene Jones, Union Theological Seminary, presiding Panelists: Kelly Brown Douglas, Goucher College Robert P. Jones, Public Religion Research Institute Stephen Prothero, Boston University

In 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 Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity" (University of California Press, 2015), which won the AAR's 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of historical studies.

Francis 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 Religion in the category of constructive-reflective studies.

David 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 reading practices that allowed nascent Jewish and Christian communities to locate repentance in Scripture." Dr. Lambert is associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.