Welcome to the Department of Religion

Aerial photograph of the UIUC Quad

2010 THULIN LECTURE

Dr. Sabina Alkire
Director, Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI)
University of Oxford
"How an Adequate Notion of Human Flourishing Challenges Economics"
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 8:00pm
Knight Auditorium at the Spurlock Museum (600 S. Gregory St., Urbana)

Dr. Sabina Alkire grew up in Champaign, Illinois and was educated at the University of Illinois and at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. At Oxford she completed masters degrees in Theology and in Economics for Development, and a doctorate in Economics. She coordinated the Culture and Poverty Learning and Research Initiative at the World Bank, served as Research Writer for the Commission on Human Security at the United Nations, and was a research associate at the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University. She now directs the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative, a research center within the University of Oxford that was launched in 2007. She is the author of Valuing Freedoms: Sen’s Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction (Oxford University Press, 2002) and numerous publications that focus on Amartya Sen’s corpus of writings, dimensions of human development, and multidimensional measures of poverty and well-being.

 

OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS

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2010 Spring Lecture
Gene Outka

Dwight Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics and Professor of Religious Studies, Yale University
Professor, Yale Divinity School
"Religion and Violence: What Do We Say Now?"
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 7:30pm
Location To Be Announced
(This event has been canceled.)

 

International Symposium on Rethinking the Boundaries Between Religion and Culture in Premodern Japan: Religious Practitioners, Aristocrats, and the Transformation of Japanese Literature

Featuring Keynote Speakers Susan Blakeley Klein (University of California, Irvine) and Nemoto Seiji (University of Tsukuba)
Thursday-Friday, March 18-19, 2010
Levis Faculty Center (919 W. Illinois St., Urbana)

International Symposium on Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others

Featuring Asma Afsaruddin, Patrice Brodeur, William Chittick, Farid Esack, David M. Freidenreich, Marcia Hermansen, Amir Hussain, Muqtedar Khan, Jerusha Lamptey, Bruce Lawrence, Gary Carl (Muhammad) Legenhausen, Daniel A. Madigan, Yasir Qadhi, Tariq Ramadan, A. Kevin Reinhart, and Sajjad Rizvi
Friday-Saturday, April 16-17, 2010
I Hotel and Conference Center (1900 S. First St., Champaign)

 

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy and Associate Dean for Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Lancaster University
"A Hindu Perspective on Religious Diversity and on the Metaphysics of the Self"
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 4:00pm
2090B Foreign Languages Building

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy and Associate Dean for Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Lancaster University
"Reading Ecological Responses Through Religious Traditions: Challenges and Responses in Hinduism and Buddhism"
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 4:00pm
Location To Be Announced

Work in Progress Series
Professor Andy Orta

Anthropology, U of I
"Vulgar citizenship: local Christianity and the repertoires of neoliberalism"
Friday, April 30, 2010 at Noon
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building (Behind Elevators, 1st Floor)

 

DEPARTMENTAL NEWS

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We welcome Anne Knafl (ABD, University of Chicago) to the Department of Religion as a visiting instructor. She is currently teaching RLST 130, Jewish Customs and Ceremonies, and RLST 201, Hebrew Bible in English.

We congratulate Professor James Treat on his selection as a University of Illinois LAS Fellow in a Second Discipline for the 2010-2011 academic year. Professor Treat will be studying environmental science in cooperation with Prof. Tony Endress and other faculty in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences.

Congratulations to Professor Jonathan Ebel, who has been recognized for excellent teaching for the Summer 2009 semester.

Congratulations to Professors Jonathan Ebel, Ken Howell, Mohammad Khalil, Robert McKim, and Brian Ruppert, and graduate teaching assistants John Evers, Nathan Raybeck, and Yushan You for being recognized for excellent teaching for the Spring 2009 semester.

We congratulate Professor Valerie Hoffman on her selection as a 2009 Carnegie Scholar! Her project, “Islamic Sectarianism Reconsidered: Ibadi Islam in the Modern Age,” explores the impact of globalization on Ibadism, a marginalized strand of Islam distinct from the two dominant branches, Sunni and Shiite. Read an article about her award in the Illini News Bureau, and the announcement of the 2009 Carnegie Scholars from the Carnegie Corporation.

Congratulations to Millie Wright, who has been awarded the Hoffman Family Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Study of Religion for 2009.

Congratulations to Jay Geyer, who has been awarded the Marjorie Hall Thulin Prize for Excellence in the Study of Religion for 2009.

We congratulate Professors Valerie Hoffman, Ken Howell, and James Treat, and graduate teaching assistants Dalia Chowdhury and John Evers, for being recognized for excellent teaching for the Fall 2008 semester!

Professor David Price's book, Humanism and Judaism: Johannes Reuchlin and the Renaissance Campaign against the Jews, will be forthcoming in 2010 from Oxford University Press.

Congratulations to Professors Jon Ebel and David Price. Professor Price will be an Associate at the Center for Advanced Study in 2009-2010 and Professor Ebel will be a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in 2009-2010.

"Lifelong Scholar: A childhood in India inspired this professor’s love for teaching," an article about Department of Religion Professor and Distinguished Teacher/Scholar Rajeshwari Pandharipande, is available in the December 2008 update to the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences News website.

The Department of Religion is pleased to host Professor Muhammad Mudassir Ali of the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan. Professor Ali is visiting the University of Illinois as part of the Interfaith Fulbright program, and will be here until December 4th, 2008.

Congratulations to Jenette Sturges, a December 2007 graduate with a bachelor's degree in Religion, who has been awarded a Fulbright award for the 2008-09 academic year, in support of her work as a university instructor in English in Vietnam.

Congratulations to Professor Mohammad Khalil, who has been recognized for excellent teaching for Summer 2008!

Congratulations to our TEN faculty and graduate students (a new record!) who have been recognized for excellent teaching for Spring 2008!

The Department of Religion's first study abroad program in Cairo, Egypt, led by Professor Valerie Hoffman, was a success!

Professor Bruce Rosenstock's book, Philosophy and the Jewish Question: Mendelssohn, Rosenzweig, and Beyond, will be forthcoming from Fordham University Press.

Congratulations to Ian Clausen and Michael Mrozinsky, who have both been awarded the Hoffman Family Award for Outstanding Achievement in Religious Studies for 2008.

Congratulations to Matt Tedeschi, Jeff Peyton, and Marianne Howe, who have all been awarded the Religious Studies Excellence in Undergraduate Studies Award for 2008.

Professor Rajeshwari Pandharipande has been selected as a Distinguished Teacher/Scholar at the U of I, beginning in the academic year 2008-2009.

Congratulations to Justin Doran, a major in the Program for the Study of Religion, who has received a Chancellor's Distinguished Fellowship to study Method and Theory in the PhD program in Religious Studies at the University of California at Riverside beginning in Fall 2008.

Professor Wayne Pitard has become Director of the Spurlock Museum. In addition, his book, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, Volume 2: Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary on KTU 1.3-1.4, will be forthcoming from Brill in 2009.

Professor Jonathan Ebel's book, Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the First World War, will be forthcoming from Princeton University Press.

Congratulations to Ian Clausen, a major in the Department of Religion, who is U of I's first Marshall Scholarship recipient in a decade.

Professor Jonathan Ebel wins Faculty Fellowship from the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities for 2007-2008.

Professors Richard Layton and Walter Feinberg receive support from the Spencer Foundation for their project "Current Initiatives to Teach Courses on Religion in Public Schools: Visions of American Citizenship Education."

Professor Wayne Pitard receives Alumni Discretionary Award and becomes NCSA/UIUC Faculty Fellow.

U. of I., USC students collaborating on unique archaeology project

NEW AND RECENT BOOKS FROM DEPARTMENT OF RELIGION FACULTY

A warm word of welcome! We invite you to explore our web site and to learn about our programs of study, courses, public events, faculty, and much more besides.

Students in our courses learn about the history, concepts, beliefs, practices, rituals, artifacts, and so on, of traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the tradition of the ancient Hebrews.

Our students are expected to understand how these religious traditions reflect the social contexts in which they emerged, and in turn how the traditions affect and transform the societies in which they flourish. And our students are required to acquire and to deploy the methods of many humanistic and social science disciplines in the course of their studies.

Whether for good or for ill, religion will have a central place in human affairs for the foreseeable future. Public expressions of religious identity will continue to serve as a way to give voice to ethnic and cultural differences. The world's religions show no signs of blending into one super-religion. Nor is religion going to yield to science. Instead religious differences, struggles among religious groups, and the involvement of religious identities, allegiances, and perspectives in all aspects of human affairs probably will persist into the distant future. For these and many other reasons the rigorous study of religion will remain as important as it has ever been.

Needless to say, the academic study of religion does not aim to promote (or to challenge) any particular perspective on religious matters. Drawing upon many methodologies it engages in the bold and challenging project of attempting to understand religion objectively and in all of its dimensions.

Robert McKim
Head

Secondary Content

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