A NEW MINOR IN AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES

The Minor in African and African American Studies was approved by the Board of Trustees at its 2018 February meeting. While the program will be officially launched in the fall semester of 2018, students can begin enrolling in classes for the minor this spring. The Founding Director for the African and African American Studies minor is Joy R. Bostic. Dr. Bostic is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies where the new program will be housed. Professor Bostic would like to thank the students who have been a part of the #WeBelongHere movement, especially Andrea Doe and Arik Stewart whose efforts helped to mobilize students and sparked a renewed call to establish a stand-alone program in African and African American Studies; Marilyn Mobley, Vice President for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity who took up the students call and organized faculty discussions that contributed to the development of a formal proposal; Drs. Mobley and Cassi Pittman who served on the proposal subcommittee; the Department of Religious Studies for its enthusiastic support for establishing the program; and the Dean’s Office of the College, College and University committee and subcommittee members as well as departmental chairs and program directors who provided feedback and support during the proposal process.

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Dr. Justine Howe Book Launch, Lecture and Reception “All-American Islam: Leisure and Parenting in Suburban Chicago”

After 9/11, American Muslims have faced increased pressure to demonstrate the compatibility of Islam and American culture. Focusing on suburban Chicago, this lecture shows how some Muslim communities have embraced leisure activities, such as playing football or apple-picking, as essential for smoothing the pathway for Islam’s acceptance in the American religious landscape and as vital for the construction of an American Islam that transcends ethnic and racial divisions.

This talk explores how consumer practices, especially those perceived as generating “spirituality” and cultural “comfort”— have become resonant in our contemporary political moment.

 

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Dr. Brian Clites – Work-in-Progress – Sacred Protests: Politics and Faith after Sexual Abuse

In the wake of Boston, 2002, survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse have been empowered to come forward with their stories of suffering. Yet from the ashes of their collective trauma, abuse survivors have built a robust agenda of political and religious reforms. In this lecture, Brian Clites, Instructor in the Department of Religious Studies, takes us on an ethnographic exploration of Catholic abuse survivors’ protests, examining not only the reforms that victims seek but also the conflicting emotions that they feel towards their church. Even as some survivors continue to kiss their Cardinal’s rings, others harbor fantasies of murder and revenge.

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Five Religious Studies Faculty Members on the Program of the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Boston, November 18-21

Joy Bostic will be a panelist in an exploratory session entitled “Spiritual but Not Religious: A Roundtable Discussion on the Past, Present, and Future(s) of Research”
Brian Clites will be a panelist in a session on “the Anthropology of Catholicism: A Roundtable on Method, Challenges, and Opportunities”
Timothy Beal will be the respondent in a session on “Monsters, Monster Theory, and Religion”
Justine Howe will be presiding over a session on “Islamophobia, the Body, and the State in Contemporary Europe”
Jonathan Tan will be the respondent in a session on “Asian American Secularities: Race, Religion, and the Secular in Chinese North American Communities”

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Dr. Justine Howe Lecture at Indiana University October 17, 2017: All-American Islam: Leisure and Parenting in Suburban Chicago

After 9/11, American Muslims have faced increased pressure to demonstrate the compatibility of Islam and American culture. Focusing on suburban Chicago, this lecture shows how some Muslim communities have embraced leisure activities, such as playing football or apple-picking, as essential for smoothing the pathway for Islam’s acceptance in the American religious landscape and as vital for the construction of an American Islam that transcends ethnic and racial divisions. By linking leisure to the moral obligation of parenting, these recreational rituals, deemed quintessentially American, are made into pious acts. This talk explores how consumer practices, especially those perceived as generating “spirituality” and cultural “comfort”— have become resonant in our contemporary political moment.

http://indiana.edu/~relstud/news/lectures#howe

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Dr. Beal Visiting Faculty at the Nida School of Translation Studies at the San Pellegrino University Foundation in Misano Adriatico, Italy

Timothy Beal was Visiting Faculty at the Nida School of Translation Studies at the San Pellegrino University Foundation in Misano Adriatico, Italy. The conference hosts a highly diverse international group of faculty and graduate students from all fields of translation studies (from religious texts to poetry and novels to recipes). This year’s theme is “Translation and Cultural Conversions.” Tim will lecture on his recent experiments in neural machine translation.

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“Changing the Narrative About Islam and Muslims”

Power of Diversity Lecture Series Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity invites you to attend “Changing the Narrative About Islam and Muslims” a lecture by Ramez Islambouli Head of Arabic Language,CWRU Dept. of Modern Languages Lecturer of Islam, CWRU Dept. of Religious Studies Adjunct Professor, CWRU School of Law   Wednesday, February 8, 2017 3 p.m., Ballroom...

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