Religious Studies Recent Successes

Rosalind Gwynne

Rosalind Gwynne's article "Usama bin Ladin, the Qur'an and Jihad" received the most online hits of all the articles "Religion" (Vol. 16, no. 2, June 2006 p. 61-90, pub. Elsevier) had published in 2007, and the third largest number in the previous year, 2006.

Rosalind I.J. Hackett

PUBLICATIONS
Submitted
Edited Books

Proselytization Revisited: Rights Talk, Free Markets, and Culture Wars. (editor) London: Equinox Publishers (publication 08).

Chapters

“Revisiting Proselytization in the Twenty-first Century.” Introduction to: Proselytization Revisited: Rights Talk, Free Markets, and Culture Wars. London: Equinox Publishers (submitted, publication 08).
“Devil Bustin' Satellites: How Media Liberalization in Africa Generates Religious Intolerance and Conflict.” In: Religion in African Conflicts and Peacebuilding Initiatives: Problems and Prospects for a Globalizing Africa. University of Notre Dame Press (submitted) co-edited with Sakah Mahmud and James Smith.
“Foreword.” In Wanda Alberts, Integrative Religious Education in Europe: A Study-of-Religions Approach (New York: Mouton de Gruyter) (2007).

Published
Chapters

“The Religious Dimension of War and Peace: Opening Remarks.” Religion and Society: an Agenda for the Twenty-first Century. Leiden: Brill, pp. [short]
“Competing Universalisms: New Discourses of Emancipation in the African Context.” In: La rationalité, une ou plurielle? ed. Paulin Houtondji. Dakar: CODESRIA, Paris: UNESCO, 163-171.

Articles
Note: I was pleased to be commissioned to do two pieces for the American Bar Association for two of their publications:

“Managing Religious Diversity in Africa Today: Governments Send Mixed Messages to Minority Religions.” Insights on Law and Society. 7, 3 (Spring): 10-11, 29.
“Negotiating Religious Pluralism in an Undecidedly Secular World.” Human Rights (Fall): 21-25

PAPERS PRESENTED/TALKS

African Studies Association, October 2007
Keynote speeches/presentations: Germany, Botswana, Thailand
Talks on my research on religion and media in Africa: India, the Netherlands, Canada, Nigeria

PANELS ORGANIZED

American Academy of Religion Nov 07 (on my forthcoming book Proselytization Revisited)
American Anthropological Association Dec 07 (on my forthcoming book Proselytization Revisited)

CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION

Symposium on “Assessing the Humanitarian Situation in Northern Uganda” Nov 2, 07 UT (featured Ugandan speakers)
Member, International Committee, 2nd South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Culture and Religion (SSEASR) Conference, Thailand (May 2007)

ACTIVITIES
Grants received
2007 Ready for the World grant ($4000) (June 07) to travel to Uganda with students
2007 Center for International Education Development Grant Fund (UT) ($1500) (June)

Consultancy

Invited to join planning committee for a major conference on Religion and Human Rights organized by the UNESCO Chair in Comparative Human Rights at the University of Connecticut in 2008.
Invited to serve 2007-11 as an Associated Member, Research Group on Social Movements and Political Culture, African Studies Centre, Leiden http://www.ascleiden.nl/Research/SocialMovementsAndPoliticalCulture.aspx
Invited to serve on the British Government’s Commissioning Panel for the ESRC/AHRC/FCO 'Radicalisation' and Violence – A Critical Reassessment programme (June 2007)
Invited to serve on the British Government’s Advisory Board for the ESRC/AHRC/FCO 'Radicalisation' and Violence – A Critical Reassessment programme (2008-09).
Invited to deliver a paper on Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa and the Media at a Conference on Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa organized by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State and the National Intelligence Council, Washington, DC, December 13, 2007

Professional

Presidency of the International Association for the History of Religions—the worldwide body for the academic study of religion 2005-10 (renewable to 15)
Created and launched with Professor Morny Joy (Canada) the IAHR Women Scholars Network www.iahr.dk/wsn
Member, Congress Academic Program Committee, IAHR World Congress, Toronto (2010)

Outreach

Knoxville Jazz for Justice founder and coordinator www.knoxjazzforjustice.org. Organized two major benefit concerts in Knoxville in September 06 and November 07. Raised $15,000 to date for Northern Uganda girls’ education and trauma counseling.
Organized visit of 2 UT students and one musician to Uganda, Botswana, and South Africa in July 07
Organized Good Karma Gardening Circle (mainly UT faculty), to do public gardening at Highlander Research and Education Center, New Market, TN

Mark Hulsether

In the wake of the publication of his book, Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Twentieth Century United States, the inaugural volume in a new series on Religion and Politics from Columbia University Press, Mark Hulsether has made several additional interventions into public discussions about religion and society.
He published an article in The Edge of Reason: Science and Religion in Modern Society, edited by Alex Bentley. This collection brings together an unusually rich and diverse group of scientists, anthropologists, journalists, and religious studies scholars to discuss contested issues where religious and scientific approaches may be in tension, such as evolution, cognition, and ideologically-motivated violence. Hulsether's article, "Why New Atheist Definitions of Religion Fail," critiques The End of Faith, by Sam Harris.
Hulsether also contributed three articles to a newly launched web journal funded by the Ford Foundation and aimed at a wider reading public, called ReligionDispatches.org. The most ambitious of these, which critiques work by the journalists Frances Fitzgerald and Amy Sullivan on the rise of politically moderate evangelicals, was republished in Interjuction: Media Meets Academia.
His chapter, "Thinking About the End of the World with Conservative Protestants," from Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Twentieth Century United States, was selected as one of the few articles on religion in Cultural Studies: an Anthology, edited by Michael Ryan, from Blackwell Press.
Closer to home, he participated in a UT public forum on "Federally Supported Faith Based Initiatives," sponsored by the Baker Center for Public Policy" on September 15, 2008.

Miriam Levering

Miriam Levering, University of Tennessee. ”What Was Dahui Like? The Representation of a Song Dynasty Chan Master in his Recorded Sayings.” Presented Saturday, April 19, 2008, 9:00 am - 4:00 p.m., at the Symposium on Literati Buddhism in Middle-Period China, in the Institute for East Asian Studies Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor , Berkeley, CA. Co-sponsored by the U.C. Berkeley Center for Chinese Studies, the U.C. Berkeley Institute of East Asian Studies, theTownsend Center for the Humanities at U.C. Berkeley, and the U.C. Berkeley Center for Buddhist Studies
Miriam Levering, University of Tennessee, “The Tang Dynasty Chan Master and the Song Dynasty Chan Master in the Song Chan Imaginary.” Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum, 12 May 2008, 4:15 PM at the Barker Center 114, Harvard University, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Co-sponsored by the Committee on the Study of Religion and the Humanities Center at Harvard.
Miriam Levering, University of Tennessee. Chair, first session, Symposium on Scriptural Authority & Status in World Religions, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, Thursday, October 16, 2008, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm, Birks Heritage Chapel (3520 University Street, 2nd floor)
Miriam Levering, University of Tennessee. "Tang Dynasty Chan Masters and Song Dynasty Chan Masters in the Song Chan Imaginary: The Case of Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163)." Buddhist Studies Lecture Series, The Divinity School, University of Chicago, Oct 30, 2008.
Miriam Levering, University of Tennessee. Numata Lecture at the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Title: "Why Does Avalokitesvara (Guanyin) Need a Thousand Arms and Eyes? Making a Place for Guanyin in Chan and Zen Buddhism." Monday, November 24, 2008, 4 pm. Birks 111, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University.

Gilya G. Schmidt

May 2007: Jewish Museum of Jebenhausen, Germany: Inivited lecture, "Das Schicksal der Suessener Juden."
July 2007: Two invited lectures on Judaism and the Holocaust at Shanghai University.
2007-2008: Core participant in UT Research Seminar on Modern Germany and Central Europe, funded by College of Arts & Sciences Humanities Initiative. This is our second year. Lecture on "Requsitions-Restitution-Reparations: The Story of the 'Judenhaus' in Suessen."
Spring and summer 2007: McClung Museum: In conjunction with Marco semester, participated in writing catalog copy for "Sacred Beauty" exhibition, docent training, and public lecture on Judaism. Exhibition ran from August 2007-Jan. 6, 2008.
Ongoing: Serving fourth term as Commissioner appointed by Gov. Bredesen on Tennessee Holocaust Commission (about 14 years).
Summer 2007: Wrote preface to book of photographs of Holocaust survivors and liberators by Professor Rob Heller, published by UT Press in conjunction with Tennessee Holocaust Commission. Publication date 2008. This book is an outcome of a photography project sponsored by the THC and partially funded by the Claims Commission to document all living TN Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators. We produced a traveling exhibition of museum quality that has traveled throughout TN and to Warsaw, Poland.
Fall 2007: Humanities Initiative Wednesday lunch presentation, "Can Grand Larceny and Good Neighboring Exist Side-by-Side? The Case of Two Jewish Families During the Nazi Era."
December 2007: Research trip to Cuba for book project below.
Work-in-progress: Book manuscript, "Suezza -- No Grazing Land for Jews," on rural German Jewry. Hope to complete in 2008.
July 2008: Returning to China for more lecturing.

Rachelle Scott

Rachelle Scott’s book, Nirvana for Sale?: Buddhism, Wealth, and the Dhammakaya Temple in Contemporary Thailand, published by SUNY press, is is now available. CLICK HERE for more information about the book and to order a copy..
Rachelle Scott’s chapter, “World Peace Through Inner Peace: the Discourses and Technologies of Dhammakaya Proselytization,” in the book Proselytization Revisited: Rights Talk, Free Markets and Culture Wars (ed. by Rosalind Hackett), was published in October 2008 by Equinox.
Rachelle Scott presented a paper entitled, “Buddhism, Miraculous Powers, and Sacred Biographies: Re-thinking the Stories of Theravada Nuns,” for the Humanities Initiative Speaker Series at the University of Tennessee, November 18, 2009.
Rachelle Scott gave a presentation on July 8, 2009 on her upcoming book, Nirvana for Sale?: Buddhism, Wealth, and the Dhammakaya Temple in Contemporary Thailand, for the UT Libraries Diversity Committee’s Culture Corner.
Rachelle Scott presented a paper entitled, “Meditation, Miracles, and Superhuman Powers: A Case Study of Two Remarkable Thai Nuns,” at the International Association of Buddhist Studies conference in Atlanta this past summer.

Christine Shepardson

Tina Shepardson received an AAR Individual Research Grant from the American Academy of Religion (2009-10)
Tina Shepardson received an AAR Regional Development Grant from the American Academy of Religion (2009-10)
Tina Shepardson had two articles published in 2009:
          "Rewriting Julian's Legacy: John Chrysostom's On Babylas and Libanius' Oration 24," Jounral of Late Antiquity 2.1
          (2009): 99-115.
          "Syria, Syriac, Syrian: Negotiating East and West in Late Antiquity," in The Blackwell Companion to Late Antiquity
          (Blackwell, 2009), 455-66.
Tina Shepardson presented 7 professional papers on her research in 2008-09, including two invited presentations (March 2009, May 2009).
Christine (Tina) Shepardson has been awarded a 2009-2010 ACLS Fellowship for her book project "Controlling Contested Places: Fourth-Century Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy." This prestigious national award allows her to do full-time research for the 2009-2010 academic year.
Dr. Tina Shepardson, Assistant Professor of Early Christianity, has recently won two national awards to support her current research on Christianity in the fourth-century city of Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey). Dr. Shepardson is currently working on her second book, which will demonstrate that fourth-century Christian leaders in Antioch rhetorically and physically manipulated the physical places in the city in order to try to win an intense religious and political struggle over the definition of Christian orthodoxy. A Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society will allow Dr. Shepardson to travel to Antakya, Turkey later this spring in order to do research for her project, and a Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities will fund two months of her research and writing over the summer.
Christine Shepardson's book manuscript has been published (October 2008): Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington, D.C.: CUA, 2008).
Christine Shepardson organized a panel of distinguished scholars for the annual SBL conference in San Diego, November 2007.
Christine Shepardson have recently presented 3 papers at national and international conferences:
- “Augustine and Ephrem on Judaism,” SBL, San Diego, CA, November 2007.
- “Reading Regional ‘Realities’: Fourth-century Judaizers in Antioch and Edessa” SBL, San Diego, CA, November 2007.
- “Burying Babylas: Meletius of Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Christianization,” XVInternational Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford, August 2007.
Christine Shepardson had three articles published:
- “Controlling Contested Places: John Chrysostom’s Adversus Iudaeos Homilies and the Spatial Rhetoric of Religious Controversy,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 15.4 (December 2007): 483-516.
- “Defining the Boundaries of Orthodoxy: Eunomius in the Anti-Jewish Polemic of his Cappadocian Opponents,” Church History 76.4 (December 2007): 699-723.
- “Paschal Politics: Deploying the Temple’s Destruction against Fourth-Century
  Judaizers,” Vigiliae Christianae 62.2 (March 2008), forthcoming.
Christine Shepardson had one book review published:
- Review of Christianization and Communication in Late Antiquity: John Chrysostom and his Congregation in Antioch, by Jaclyn Maxwell. Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, 76.4 (December 2007): 823-824.
For the third year, Christine Shepardson remained the Project Director and Chair of UTK’s faculty seminar, “The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity.” In this role, I have organized 15 seminar sessions for the 2007-2008 academic year, including bringing four outside scholars to campus, and presenting my own work for discussion at the September meeting: “Rewriting Julian’s Legacy: Dating Chrysostom’s De S. Babyla in light of Libanius’s Oration 24.”
August 2007, Christine Shepardson was selected as one of UTK’s two nominees for the NEH Summer Stipend.

Johanna Stiebert

Johanna Stiebert had a 34-page article accepted for publication in the journal Old Testament Essays 20/3 (2007), entitled "Shame and the Body in Psalms and Lamentations of the Hebrew Bible and in Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran."
In 2005, Johanna Stiebert's second book was published, "The Exile and the Prophet's Wife: Historic Events and Marginal Perspectives" (Interfaces Series. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press).
Johanna Stiebert contributed a chapter to a forthcoming textbook for the continent of Africa, entitled "An Introduction to the Study of Theology, Religion and Philosophy." My contribution therein is, "The Bible: The History of Interpretation and Methods."
In July 2007, Johanna Stiebert presented a paper at the African Association for the Study of Religion, held in Gaborone, Botswana. My title discussed the inappropriateness of the term "Holocaust" for the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa and was entitled, "The African Holocaust: What Is In A Name?"
Johanna Stiebert will be the Director for the Semester in Wales for fall 2008.

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