The Faith-Spangled Banner: Changes in American attitudes and belief in all directions
In contemplating a response to Prof Ariela Keysar’s interview with the Religious Studies Project over her work as Associate Director of ISSSC and its most famous endeavour, ARIS, I was struck by the dilemma faced when introducing myself to people here in the UK and telling them where I am from. The replies range from everywhere and between,
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 8 June 2012 Edition
HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL announces five full-time positions as Research Associate and Visiting Faculty for 2013-14 in its Women’s Studies in Religion Program. Proposals for book-length research projects utilizing both religion and gender as central categories of analysis are welcomed. Priority will go to book projects for which most research has been completed.
Opportunities Digest (4 May 2012) – Books, Conferences, Journals, Jobs and more…
This illustrated guide traces the evolution of Benzaiten iconography in Japanese artwork and explores her role as a beacon of Japan’s combinatory Deva-Buddha-Kami religious matrix. To a lesser degree, it also examines the ritualistic context of her worship – how her art was employed in religious rites, state functions, Shintō ceremonies, and folk practices. It includes special sections on her Hindu associations,
Secularization: A Look at Individual Level Theories of Religious Change
While it is often argued that the secularization thesis only referred to macro-level secularization – the separation of religion from other societal spheres in the process of functional differentiation (cf. e.g. Wilson 1998) – there is no way of denying that most specific secularization theories also refer to a loss of significance of religion on the individual level, explicitly or implicitly,
Religion’s common denominators, and a plea for data
Beit-Hallahmi rightly notes that psychologists of religion focus on the psychological common denominators that associate with religious beliefs. Some of these are cognitive processes; for instance, Barrett (2000) has discussed the ‘Hyperactive Agent Detection Device’, a cognitive feature whereby humans (and some animals) tend to misperceive the movements of objects in the world as intentional, even if the object is,
Weekly Opportunities Digest (6 April 2012) – Journals, Papers, Jobs and more….
We have moved opportunities digests until Fridays, largely to promote more discussion related to the reponse essays and podcasts, and also to give readers the chance to think about the opportunities over the weekend. We are not responsible for any content contained herein, but have simply copied and pasted from a variety of sources.
What We’re Learning from the Cognitive Study of Religion
“As the cognitive science of religion matures, there will no doubt be creative and exciting approaches to the current debates and to questions that are only beginning to arise in the field, such as how thinking about malevolent agents differs from thinking about benevolent ones. It is an exciting time for the study of religious cognition.”
In Armin Geertz’s recent interview with the Religious Studies Project, he provides an excellent overview of the methods and challenges in the cognitive study of religion and provides examples of some interesting theories and findings from the field.
Ways to Increase Your Academic Visibility
“The aim of scholarly research is to make a contribution to the existing human knowledge. Still, many scholars are aware of valuable articles that are rarely cited in the academic literature. The innovative advances delayed by the cumulative research impact lost cannot be accurately calculated at this moment. Probably eighty years from now, future studies will present detailed insights into the causes and consequences of the early 21st century’s increased scholarship fragmentation.”