Fall 2019 Welcome Reception

Royce Hall, Rm 306

You are cordially invited to attend the Center for the Study of Religion Fall 2019 Welcome Reception. We look forward to seeing you there!   Event Flyer RSVP Below:    

How Religion Matters in an Age of Extinction

Kaplan 365

In person (Kaplan 365) or on Zoom Could knowledge about biodiversity loss be advanced through inquiry into the study of religion? Emerging from a lab that integrates humanities, arts, and sciences into research on coastal change in Virginia, this talk shows how different conceptions of religion and spirituality open unique lines of inquiry into human...

The Great Search with John Philip Newell

314 Royce Hall/Zoom

The story of Adam and Eve’s fall from innocence in the Garden of Eden is a mythical account of humanity’s broken relationship with the divine, with Earth, and with themselves. In contrast, Celtic wisdom is built on a strong bond with Earth. In the prophetic figures that author John Philip Newell draws from in his...

Seeking Liberation: Contemporary Female Ascetic Orders Among the Jains

Online on Zoom

Present day records show an overwhelming numerical preponderance of nuns in Jain mendicant orders. Their striking presence demands that we question the androcentric models of renunciation in South Asia, as well as interrogate the commonsensical assumptions about the attraction that a lifetime of mendicancy may hold for women. By privileging the voice of the nuns,...

Symposium – (Mis)using the Bible: White Evangelicalism & Christian Nationalism in America

Royce Hall 306/Zoom

White Evangelicalism and Christian Nationalism has occupied an increasingly prominent position since—and in many ways before—the first Trump administration. Events such as January 6 and the second Trump presidency have highlighted the entanglement of politics and religious belief that is central to Christian Nationalism. This symposium brings together several scholars to discuss various aspects of...

Progressive Activists and the Bible

Online on Zoom

Some of America's most effective reformers did not just refer to the Bible, but fused their own struggles with its narratives, seeing themselves as part of a cosmic divine battle within history. Claudia Setzer will have us consider how abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer and others used multiple methods of biblical...