Alumni News
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- Professor James L. Fitzgerald was invited to represent “the ancient epic traditions of India” at a conference on “Epic and History: Ancient and Medieval” at Brown University sponsored by Brown’s Program in Ancient Studies and the Cogut Center for the Humanities. The conference, from December 1-3, 2006, included about a dozen invited scholars representing different areas of the world with epic traditions. His presentation was “No Contest between Memory and Invention: The Case of the Pāndava Heroes of the Mahābhārata.”
- Professor Rosalind Gwynne published a major scholarly and highly topical article, "Usama bin Ladin, the Qur'an and Jihad" in the international journal, Religion (36,2) June 2006.
- In 2004 Prof. Mark Hulsether was invited to participate in a two-year colloquy on teaching and learning in religious studies sponsored by the Wabash Center (a sort of religious studies think tank that functions as an arm of the Lilly Foundation.) This colloquy brought together professors in religious studies from for a process of reflection on the problems and possibilities of teaching religious studies. Along with colleagues from the University of Georgia and Appalachian State University, Hulsether this year applied for and received a $15,000 grant to further develop projects begun during this colloquy. Called "Rethinking the Christian Studies Classroom: Mapping the Hidden (and Not So Hidden) Dynamics of Teaching Religion in the South," this grant will bring together nine faculty from three universities for an additional year of collaborative work.
- Assistant Professor Christine Shepardson had her year-long faculty seminar on the Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity renewed for a second year by the College of Arts and Sciences' Humanities Initiative. Tina Shepardson continues to chair the seminar, working closely with the three other core faculty: Michael Kulikowski (History), Thomas Heffernan (English), and Maura Lafferty (Classics). The interdisciplinary nature of the seminar has allowed for extremely productive and engaging conversations (and eventual publications) on the religious and political dynamics of the late ancient Mediterranean world.
- Last year Professor Miriam Levering and two colleagues received a College of Arts and Sciences Humanities Initiative grant for a year-long workshop entitled, "Print Culture in China 700-1600: Intersections of Art, History and Religion." This year, she and five colleagues from across the college received funding for a second grant from the Humanities Initiative for spring 2007 entitled "Centrality and Marginality in China: An Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar." This seminar focuses on various dimensions of centrality and marginality, or the center and the periphery, in China past and present.
- Lecturer Meagan Carter has accepted a position as Director of Religious Education at Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
- Professor Rosalind Hackett was invited to serve as expert on a live and interactive BBC World Service program, Africa Have Your Say, on April 18, 2006. The topic was the rise of Pentecostalism in Africa.Dr. Mark Hulsether received a Faculty First Grant from the Innovative Technology Center at UTK. These grants support teachers who utilize emerging technologies to enhance their teaching; they involve a combination of in-kind help from the ITC, funding for equipment, and a commitment by recipients to learn new skills and experiment with innovative teaching. Dr. Hulsether will use his current grant--which builds on two earlier Faculty First grants--to improve his use of audio-video resources in a new course he is developing on US Cultural Identities in a Global Context.
- Dr. Miriam Levering traveled in March 2006 to a very successful international conference on Guanyin/Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva at Dharma Drum University in Taiwan. Excellent scholars came from China, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and the United States. Her paper, which she had already given twice to audiences at Harvard University, was on Guanyin in the Chan and Zen Buddhist tradition. One of Dr. Levering's purposes in attending the conference in Taiwan was to form lasting relationships with scholars at Dharma Drum University.
- Dr. Mark Hulsether contributed to the NEXUS Conference organized by the Dept. of English on April 7, 2006 -on “Religion and Nation.” He aided in acquiring funding for the conference, was key host for the Native American poet and a keynote speaker, Diane Glancy, and also gave a paper: “Rethinking the Place of Religion in Scholarly Narratives About Oppositional Youth Culture in the 1960s.”
- Master's students Wayne Bass, and Jamie Hataway (2006) both gained admission to top graduate schools. Wayne has received offers from UCLA and the University of California at Riverside; Jamie from Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley and the University of Pittsburgh (with a fellowship to cover tuition and offer a stipend). He opted for the latter.
- Dr. John O. Hodges printed his most recent work on the Mississippi Delta in an article for Southern Quarterly entitled, "Percy’s Lanterns: A Reply from a Mississippi Sharecropper's Son." Here, John responds to William Alexander Percy's autobiography, Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son, from the point of view of both a scholar in autobiography and as the son of sharecroppers.
- Rosalind I. J. Hackett was interviewed by Channel 12 television prior to her talk on Wednesday October 13, 2005, to the Roane-Anderson Professional Society (RAPS) on religious fundamentalism and terrorism. She also spoke on the same topic to St Paul's United Methodist Church in North Knoxville in September and the event was covered by Jake Mabe in the Halls Shopper News.
Rosalind Hackett was elected President of the International Association for the History of Religions at the 19th World Congress in Tokyo in March 2005. The IAHR is the premier organization for the academic study of religion worldwide. She will hold office from 2005-10. Previously, she served as Vice-President (2000-05) and Deputy General Secretary and Congress Academic Program Coordinator (1995-2000). The Tokyo Congress was also attended by Professors Schmidt, Levering, Jacobs Scott, and graduate students Jamie Hataway and Sherry Williams.