#UFreligion Archives

Launching in Summer 2021: A New Ethics and Society Certificate

As a quick skim through any newspaper or social media feed reveals, contemporary societies face many complex, large-scale challenges that have no easy solutions, such as climate change, police violence, terrorism, and world poverty. While these challenges may all seem very different, they each force us to confront ethical questions: what is morally right and […]

Religion in a Time of Pandemic: A CFP

5th Annual RGSA Graduate Conference Religion Graduate Students Association (RGSA) Department of Religion University of Florida Call for Papers “Religion in a Time of Pandemic” March 6, 2021 You are cordially invited to participate in the University of Florida’s Religion Graduate Students Association annual conference: “Religion in a Time of Pandemic.” Due to the current […]

Islam in South Asia

The study of Muslims in South Asia—in India, but also in Bangladesh and Pakistan—is crucial for understanding contemporary Islam in our global world. South Asian Muslims are also active in the Arabian Gulf region and in Western Europe and North America, especially in the UK. In this course, we take “Islam in South Asia” as […]

Religion, Social Movements, and Social Change

This class explores the role of religion in movements for social change. We will address core questions in study of social movements – how movements emerge, why people join, how they mobilize resources, what strategies and tactics they employ, and what goals they seek – by examining a range of case studies, including civil rights […]

The Pentateuch

The modern study of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) effectively began in the nineteenth century, when scholars, through painstaking critical analysis of the biblical text, discovered that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) was written not by one author — Moses, according to venerable tradition — but by several, over the course of several centuries. […]

Call for Papers: Protests, Power, and Prayer: Intersection of Activism, Culture, and Religion

4TH Annual RSGA Graduate Conference February 21-22, 2020 This conference will explore the intersections of religion and/or spirituality and activism as we seek to highlight instances of religious resistance, dynamics of power, and instances of socio-cultural change. Historically, religious individuals and communities have engaged with political and social activism in cultural movements including those focused […]

The Wait is Over: the 3rd Annual RGSA Conference Is Almost Here

Religion & Power in Côte d’Ivoire

In an increasingly interconnected world, religion continues to play a critical role in the lives of individuals and their relations to society. Processes of colonialism, migration, and globalization have shaped and have been shaped by religion, leading scholars and public intellectuals to rethink traditions, beliefs, and practices and how they mediate power relations within the […]

Religion and Power: A CFP

3rd Annual RSGA Graduate Conference March 16-17, 2018 In an increasingly interconnected world, religion continues to play a critical role in the lives of individuals and their relations to society. Processes of colonialism, migration, and globalization have shaped and have been shaped by religion, leading scholars and public intellectuals to rethink traditions, beliefs, and practices […]

Statistics showcase department’s ongoing commitment to diversity

The University of Florida, and its Religion Department, “are dedicated to increasing college access and providing opportunities for students from all backgrounds.” Furthermore, we celebrate and value a student body with diverse experiences and scholarly perspectives. It is with this in mind that we are excited to share some statistics on diversity within our department’s […]

Religion in the News: September 29, 2017

Religion has always been with us. And it isn’t going away. Throughout history, it has expressed the deepest questions human beings can ask, and it has taken a central place in the lives of virtually all civilizations and cultures. Indeed, even today, we find religion everywhere we turn. In order to illustrate how relevant religion is […]

Summer Students Explore Non-Western Healing Practices

Professor Robin M. Wright (ONLINE) This course is dedicated to the study of non-Western healers and medicine in relation to various religious traditions around the globe. The most important themes we shall discuss are: the efficacy of religious symbols in the healing process; cross-cultural notions of the body, pain, and healing; embodiment of healing powers […]

Travel Ban Panel at UF Explores Race, Religion

*Aya Cockram is a graduate student in UF’s Religion Department. Cocrkam contributed this blog post in her personal capacity. The views expressed are her own and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Florida Religion Department, University of Florida’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, or the University of Florida. The recent Executive Order banning […]

UF religion goes west — Gators at AAR/SBL 2016 in San Antonio, TX

The American Academy of Religion brings thousands of professors and students, authors and publishers, religious leaders and interested laypersons to its Annual Meeting each year. Co-hosted with the Society of Biblical Literature, the Annual Meetings are the largest events of the year in the fields of religious studies and theology. Some 10,000 people attended the […]

Sexing Sacred Bodies

Bodies shape and are shaped by religious practice—they enact ritual, are fashioned to reflect religious identity, inspire and create devotional objects, and define boundaries of sacredness. How does the gender of such bodies shape experiences of the sacred, and how do devotees perform gender within religious landscapes? What does it mean to “masculinize” or “feminize” […]

Do Young Democrats Even Care About Religion?

The 2016 primaries have been full of religious rhetoric, be it pandering to a specific religious group or promoting fear of another. With this being the case, it can be expected to play a big role in the presidential election. The Republican Party is often conjured as being representative of the “Christian Right” while the […]

A Week of Religion News Blogs

Religion matters. Religion news matters. Every single day a new religion headline hits the press — on blogs and online news agencies, television and in print. And so, there are serious matters to consider when it comes to reporting religion news. Why should we report on religion news? What are the best practices? How do […]

Religion Reporters Thrive With The People’s Pope

By Tonia Borsellino In the past year, His Holiness Pope Francis traveled to the United States, Africa and Mexico. The media was right there behind him. They followed his every move, documenting it closely. One reporter quipped that he would even cover his nap times. From the food he eats to the attire he wears, […]

The WHY of religion newswriting, from the source

by Meghan Mangrum, graduate student in the University of Florida’s College of Journalism & Communications who is enrolled in #UFreligion’s “Religion and the News” class. The halls of inner-city Chicago Catholic schools, gay-rights events in Havana, the Mexico-American border and refugee communities in Italy – Megan Sweas’ work has taken her all over the […]

Our Spring courses bring all the students to the hall

Can you believe it? Homecoming is upon us, Thanksgiving break is just around the corner, and it’s time to register for Spring classes. Time flies when you’re having fun (a.k.a. when you’re studying religion at UF). As you register for Spring coursework in the coming weeks we wanted to make sure you had all the […]

Blogging like an academic

*This post is shared from one of our graduate students (Ken Chitwood, PhD ’14), who recently led a seminar on “blogging like an academic” as part of our Digital Humanities 2015-2016 Seminars. When I started blogging I had two readers: my mom and some random dude in Sweden. To say the least, I was a HUGE […]

Alumni Profile: Michael Franks

Why did you go into religious studies in the first place? I was originally drawn to Religious Studies because I wanted to go into the ministry to work as a pastor. During the course of my studies, however, I shifted my focus because I could not reconcile my academic work with the silence and lack […]

Former #UFreligion faculty, chair, passes

We are very sad to report that Dr. Austin Creel, former chair of our department, passed away earlier this week, after a short illness. Austin Bowman Creel was born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1929. After graduating from high school in 1946, he went to Northwestern University. He started his graduate work at the Colgate-Rochester Divinity […]

#UFreligion welcomes incoming graduate students for Fall 2016

In 2003, #UFreligion took a major step forward, inaugurating a doctoral program. A particular strength of this program is its interdisciplinary nature. In approaching religion, we encourage our students not only to engage other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, but also to draw from university-wide resources in […]

Religion, science, & women’s studies converge in outstanding undergraduate research

Religion and science. The company line is that the two are locked in some inexorable conflict, some primeval wrestling match that has no bloodless resolution. But what if, in one person, the two could reside simultaneously? What if that person was a student and planned to take her degree in religious studies and merge that […]

Top scholars consider religion, science, & the future

In 1967 Lynn Townsend White, Jr. proposed in his essay, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis” that it was Christian influence and Middle Age mechanical technologies that lie at the root of the ecological crisis of the 20th-century. While not the first to put forward such a critique, White published in the revered journal […]

#UFreligion Announces Fall Course Offerings

From studying environmental ethics to approaches to anthropology in Jewish studies and the exploration of Islam in Africa the Fall 2015 semester offerings from #UFreligion are as interesting as can be. With strengths in religion & nature, religion & the Americas, religions of Asia and expertise in both textual studies and ethnographic research the department is offering a wide-range […]

UF Religion Teams Up with Florida State Parks System

The Florida Division of Recreation & Parks (DRP) is collaborating with the University of Florida and the University of Central Florida on the “Wish You Were Here” project, a self-directed cultural trail for visitors to explore the rich cultural heritage of seven Florida state parks (Wakulla Springs State Park; Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings SHP; Homosassa Springs; Silver Springs; […]

Center Announces Graduate Certificate in Global Islam

The Center for Global Islamic Studies is happy to announce the Graduate Certificate in Global Islam. The goal of this certificate is to train students to pursue careers in teaching and research related to Islam, and will broaden students’ understanding of the diversity of Islam in the global context. The certificate requires the completion of 15 credits for […]

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