March Break Open House
March 9th, 2019 in BioScience Atrium

9:00am - 2:00pm (Departmental / Academic Fair)
9:30am - 3:00pm (Prof Talks, Tours Available)

Special thanks to our RELS Student Volunteers who helped out at the Annual March Break Open House event!

• Ally Craig
• Norees Gasper
• Emily Saar
• Amanda Szpindel

The Workshop on Sufi Whirling has been rescheduled!

Monday, March 18th - 1:30 to 3:30 pm
In the Sutherland Room - JDUC 240

Workshop on Sufi Whirling

School of Religion Colloquium Series

Dr. Matthew Dougherty speaks on "Israelites in America: Emotions, Expansion, and the Missionary Project in the Early U.S." 

March 21st, 2019
10:00 - 11:30
Elias Andrews Room, Second Floor, Theological Hall

March 28th, 2019
Biosciences Complex - Room 1102

In her lecture, Professor Chan-Malik considers the ways U.S. Muslim women’s identities are expressions of Islam as both Black protest religion and universal faith tradition,  and explore how this history shapes Muslim women’s identity formation and cultural presence in both the U.S. and Canada. Drawing on archival images, cultural texts, popular media, and interviews, she will show how communities of American Islam became sites of safety, support, spirituality, and social activism, and how women of color were central to their formation. By accounting for Islam’s rich histories of mobilization and community in the U.S, she highlights the forms of resistance that Muslim women have historically engaged in, and how this has come to inform transnational networks of activism and advocacy around issues of Islam, race, and gender. From the stories  she gathers, Professor Chan-Malik demonstrates the diversity and similarities of Black, Arab, South Asian, Latina, Indigenous, and multiracial Muslim women in the U.S. and Canada, and how North American understandings of Islam have shifted against the evolution of racial and gender politics, nationalism, and the logics of empire-building over past century. In borrowing from the lineages of Black and women-of-color feminism, Chan-Malik offers a new vocabulary for Muslim feminism in North America, one that is as conscious of race, gender, sexuality, and nation, as it is region and religion.

BIO:

Sylvia Chan-Malik is Associate Professor in the Departments of American and Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, where she directs the Social Justice Program and teaches courses on race and ethnicity in the United States, Islam in/and America, social justice movements, feminist methodologies, and multiethnic literature and culture in the U.S. She is the author of Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam (NYU Press, 2018), which offers an alternative narrative of American Islam in the 20th-21st century that centers the lives, subjectivities, voice, and representations of women of color. Her writings are also featured in numerous anthologies, including With Stones in Our Hands: Writings on Muslim, Racism, and Empire (UMinn Press, 2018), Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West(Routledge, 2015), and The Cambridge Companion to American Islam (Cambridge, 2013), and in scholarly journals, such as Amerasia, CUNY Forum, Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion, and The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She speaks frequently on issues of U.S. Muslim politics and culture, Islam and gender, and racial and gender politics in the U.S., and her commentary has appeared in venues such as Slate News, The Intercept, Daily Beast, PRI, Huffington Post, Patheos, Religion News Service, and others. She holds a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Mills College.

You are cordially invited to attend.
All presentations will take place in the Elias Andrews Room, 2nd floor, Theological Hall.

Candidates for our position in Contemporary Jewish Religion and Globalized Identities will be presenting as follows:

**CANCELLED**
Dr. Shawna Dolansky, Carleton University
Wednesday April 17, 11 am

"Myth as Mirror: The Immortality of Adam & Eve" 

Adam and Eve are everywhere, from perfume ads to pop songs, from conservative slogans ("Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve") to computer logos.  Feminists and patriarchalists, Aryan Nations and adult toy store owners all invoke this primordial couple in thinking about sex, gender, and the nature of evil.  This fixation on Eden has been ongoing for almost three millennia.  Following this story's interpretations through history provides excellent insight into the ways in which myths construct, and are simultaneously constructed by, social and cultural ideologies of gender and hierarchy. 

Dr. Dustin Atlas, University of Dayton
Thursday April 25, 9:30 am

“Dialogue and the Nonhuman World: Buber and Contemporary Jewish Thought”

This talk explores exciting transformations in present-day Jewish thought by looking at intellectual and religious trajectories which engage the figure of Martin Buber. It will examine how Martin Buber's work has energized Jewish thought, and conversely, how his work has been transformed by contemporary concerns. More specifically: we will explore how the concept of dialogue has been transformed by the ecological crisis, moving from a humanist concern with other humans, to a broader materialist engagement with beings which do not speak (such as animals, babies, and plants).

Dr. Jennifer Caplan, Towson University
Monday April 29, 11:00 am

"What's Jewish about Jewish Humor"

This talk interrogates the idea that "cultural Judaism" and "religious Judaism" are separate and potentially incommensurate concepts. Caplan argues that not only are those things often dismissed as "cultural" actually quite religious, but also that contemporary Jews have taken their religious cues from popular culture.

Completed applications will be considered up to April 30th, 2019.

More Information

Elias Andrews Room, Theological Hall
Wednesday, May 8th 2019 - 10:00 am - 2:30 pm

One of the major purposes of this event comes out of the fact that fully half of our graduate students have been accepted for doctoral work in Fall 2019. Consequently, this event is conceived as a celebration of Master’s level work in Religious Studies and also a reflection on the demands of doctoral studies. You may be aware of Master’s students who are also about to launch into doctoral work. They might find this event informative as well.

Plan Selection process runs May 13^th to 24^th 

Follow the links for more information on Plan Changes (Upper year Students) and Plan Selection (Students completing first year).

Presentation of Sufi Whirling

Thursday, October 3^rd 2019

3:00 pm

Rotunda Theater - Theological Hall