Greetings from Knoxville
Message from Head of the Department of Religious Studies
We have an exciting year coming up in the Department of Religious Studies! I am excited to be commencing my five year term as department head following the exceptional Tina Shepardson in the position. She is enjoying a sabbatical year and working on her latest monograph. She is joined in research leave by our Islamic Studies scholar Manuela Ceballos who was awarded a National Endowment of the Humanities fellowship. This is one of the most prestigious national awards available to faculty in the United States. Larry Perry and I will be returning from fellowships. Perry was a fellow at the Humanities Center during the 2022-2023 academic year and I was at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University in Budapest.
Fortunately, as two of our colleagues engage in research for the year we are adding new faculty! We are excited to welcome Marcus Harvey who works on religions in Africa as he begins teaching for us this fall. We also welcomed a new lecturer, CC Jones.
For our students, we are offering a number of new courses from our newest faculty members, Marcus Harvey and Joseph Witt. We are also offering a new twist on one of our general education courses. This spring, Erin Darby and I will be taking students to Israel as part of the inaugural year of the Frankel-Ricketts Scholars in Israel program. This program will take 15 students during spring break to Israel to learn about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This class is open not only to our majors but to anyone across the university.
We are hosting a number of interesting lectures and programs this year. We will be running a lecture series on Religion and Nature. This theme will weave through a number of our endowed lectures including our annual Siddiqi Lecture in Islamic Studies, Distinguished Lecture in Religious Studies, and Anjali Lecture in Hindu Studies. In addition to these lectures, we will be hosting two lectures in Jewish Studies and celebrating the publication of a number of our faculty books through book parties. Our first celebration will be on October 12 at 5:30 p.m. for Megan Bryson’s edited volume, Buddhist Masculinities, which will appear on Columbia University Press.
This is our first year under a new division of humanities within the College of Arts and Sciences. Our new divisional dean is Beauvais Lyons and our interim executive dean is Robert J. Hinde. We are learning about all the wonderful opportunities that will come with this new structure.