{"title":"Individualized Programs of Evaluation","authors":"I. Peák","doi":"10.1558/bsor.21359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.21359","url":null,"abstract":"“The Archive” brings you selections from the Bulletin’s history to give you perspective on the history of currents in the field. In this edition, we bring you a piece from CSSR Bulletin (1991: 20.2) by the late Ira H. Peak, Jr. (d. 1915), an ethicist who worked at a number of North American universities throughout his career. While teaching at the University of Missouri—Columbia, Peak experimented with what he described as “the Evaluation Menu,” a pedagogical framework for empowering students to participate in the whole of the learning experience—even its grading.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"160 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116266490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The CSRS, Then and Now","authors":"Paul Bramadat","doi":"10.1558/bsor.21130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.21130","url":null,"abstract":"The Guild introduces you to the various associations, societies, and organizations where scholars carry out their work. In this issue, we learn about the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the Unviersity of Victoria. Throughout its thirty-year history, the CSRS has creatively developed space to further the academic study of religion. Special thanks to Paul Bramadat, Director and Professor, for his insights on the Centre’s history.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115221339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"UK Graduate Education in the Time of COVID-19","authors":"Suzanne Owen","doi":"10.1558/bsor.21128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.21128","url":null,"abstract":"The Buzz examines scholarly topics in light of present-day concerns and challenges. This edition centers on the unique challenges of graduate education as a result of the restrictions of COVD-19. In issue 50.1 we heard from scholars working within the context of the US. In this issue, Suzanne Owen of Leeds Trinity University and the Bulletin Advisory Board offers a brief look at the situation in the UK.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"112 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116976031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theory and Data in a Computational Model of Secularization","authors":"F. Shults","doi":"10.1558/bsor.20997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.20997","url":null,"abstract":"This article illustrates the value of computer modeling and simulation (CMS) for linking theory and data in the academic study of religion, focusing on ways in which scholars in religious studies and the humanities can benefit by collaboratively engaging in this relatively new and radically transdisciplinary methodology. I begin by briefly introducing CMS and describing some of its recent uses in analyses of religious phenomena. The second part provides a case study – an agent-based model (ABM) designed to simulate and forecast changes in religiosity and existential security in Europe (Gore et al. 2018). The main research question guiding the construction and validation of this model was: What are some of the conditions under which – and mechanisms by which – religiosity declines in contemporary European populations? I highlight one of the main research findings from the simulation experiments on the model. Finally, I briefly explore some of the material and methodological implications of the development and deployment of such models for the academic study of religion.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"72 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129592031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Academic Study of Religion in Bibliometric Perspective","authors":"W. Wildman","doi":"10.1558/bsor.21127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.21127","url":null,"abstract":"Academic conferences are among the most energizing gatherings of scholars and scholarship. When the North American Association for the Study of Religion pivoted to an online format for their 2020 Annual Meeting, a broader audience was able to enjoy the sophisticated social analysis for which NAASR is known. In this issue, NAASR joins the Bulletin as a content-partner in publishing some of the research featured during the meeting. Wesley J. Wildman (Boston University) shares his bibliometric research of social scientific publications in the field. F. LeRon Schults (Boston University) highlights how computational modeling and simulations can be used to examine religious phenomena as well as forecast sociological dynamics. And Daniel D. Miller (Landmark College) posits a framework he calls “queer democracy” to help readers historicize, complicate, and confound the articulation of Christian nationalist politics. Together these contributions speak to currents in theory and method being explored in the North American field.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127476951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Queer Panic","authors":"Daniel D. Miller","doi":"10.1558/bsor.21029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.21029","url":null,"abstract":"This essay utilizes a theory of social embodiment as an analytical frame for the consideration of contemporary Christian nationalists’ near obsession with criminalizing trans and gender nonconforming (TGNC) embodiment and denying fundamental legal protections to TGNC individuals. It first presents a brief overview of Christian nationalism, understood as an expression of populist and nationalist identity, and Christian nationalists’ anti-TGNC efforts. Utilizing a constructive theoretical account of the metaphor of society as a kind of body, the paper goes on to argue that Christian nationalism takes shape as the expression of a desire for the imposition and maintenance of a very particular social and political order, grounded in the social body’s imagined normative shape or morphology. Within this theoretical frame, the essay argues that, in trans and gender nonconforming individuals, Christian nationalists are confronted with queer forms of embodiment that fundamentally undermine the imagined normative or “natural” embodiment, both individual and social, around which their social and political identity has taken shape. Considered from this theoretical perspective, Christian nationalist efforts aimed at criminalizing trans and gender nonconforming embodiment and denying the rights of trans and gender nonconforming individuals represent visceral, dysphoric responses toward individuals whose presence disfigures or transmogrifies the social body.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"285 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114493222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Writing and the Great Change Upon Us,” with Esi Edugyan","authors":"Tim Lilburn","doi":"10.1558/bsor.21129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.21129","url":null,"abstract":"For this edition of The Interview, the Bulletin is proud to bring you an exchange that was originally part of the John Albert Hall Lectures and Values for a New World lecture series, hosted by the Centre for Studies in Religion & Society at the University of Victoria. To see video of this and additional CSRS programming, please visit http://vimeo. com/csrs.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116571793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Bulletin of the ’90s—It’s the End of the Field as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)","authors":"R. Newton","doi":"10.1558/bsor.21354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.21354","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123107150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modern Yoga Research as a Discursive Formation","authors":"Matteo Di Placido","doi":"10.1558/bsor.18587","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.18587","url":null,"abstract":"The practice of yoga is on the rise, as much as its academic scrutiny. Scholars, especially within the disciplinary boundaries of religious studies, South Asian studies, Indology, anthropology, and sociology, have recently started to critically inquire into the birth and transnational developments of modern forms of yoga, tracing their genealogies and textual roots. This expanding literature has in turn contributed to the constitution of the emergent and multidisciplinary field of modern yoga research, or yoga studies. The primary aim of this article is thus to analyze the field of modern yoga research as a ‘discursive formation’ (Foucault [1971]1972), that is, an ensemble of texts constituting – or contributing to the constitution of – a specific object of analysis, namely modern yoga. In so doing, it also aims to contribute to the advancement of the discursive study of religion more in general. The article relies on a ‘discursive study of religion’ approach (e.g., von Stockrad 2003, 2010, 2013) with a focus on its archaeological leaning (e.g., Foucault 1965, 1972, [1963] 1973, [1966] 2002). More specifically, I underline the affinity that modern yoga research’s discursive references have with a number of discursive currents that characterize the disciplines it emerged from, such as radical historicism, cultural relativism, modernism, Orientalism and neo-colonialism. Finally, I conclude by summarizing the main results of this contribution and exploring their relevance to the self-reflexive development of the overlapping fields of cultural analyses and the study of religion.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134091346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neutrality in the Study of Religion","authors":"J. Whittaker","doi":"10.1558/bsor.20566","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.20566","url":null,"abstract":"The Archive is a feature of the Bulletin in which previous publications are reprinted to reinforce the modern relevance of archived arguments. “Neutrality in the Study of Religion,” originally published in 1981, comes from Dr. John H. Whittaker (1945-2019), who was the Department Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Louisiana State University until 2006. This article is relevant 30 years after its original publication, as it explores an ongoing debate in the field: the limits of objectivity in religious studies. Whittaker critiques a claim made by sociologist Robert Bellah in order to argue that religion can and should be taught from what he terms a “neutral” standpoint that encourages critical inquiry. The role of the scholar of religion as a researcher, observer, and teacher is one that remains contended across the field of religious studies today.","PeriodicalId":354875,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin for The Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128666796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}