Tag Archives: pedagogy

Templeton and the Dalai Lama

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Craig Martin

By Craig Martin The AAR just announced that the Dalai Lama will be speaking at their 2012 Annual Meeting in Chicago as part of a Templeton event: His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader whose long-standing engagement … Continue reading →

Posted in Academy, Craig Martin, Politics and Religion, Religion and Society, Religion and Theory, Religion in the News, Theory and Method | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Priming Students for Seeing White Privilege

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Craig Martin

Here’s a trick I use—which seems to work—in order to prime students to be predisposed to looking for rather than dismissing white privilege when I talk about race in my REL 101 course. I introduce the topic by pointing out … Continue reading →

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Nationalist Hierophanies

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Craig Martin

One semester in REL 101 I told students that I would perform a “ritual” with them, whereby I would make “the Sacred” manifest itself. My ritual supplies included a bowl of water, a glue stick, a lighter, and some square, rectangular, … Continue reading →

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Identity or Affiliation: To Share or Not to Share?

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Craig Martin

I want to pose a question to professors in religious studies: do you share your “religious” identity or affiliation (or disaffiliation) with students? Why or why not? Have you had positive of negative experiences as a result of sharing? I … Continue reading →

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Why Would They Do It If They Don’t Believe?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Craig Martin

The idea that “belief” is at the center of those institutions and cultural practices we typically identify as “religious” is highly problematic. It’s an ongoing struggle to disrupt this common (Protestant) assumption in the classroom. To illustrate the gap between … Continue reading →

Posted in Craig Martin, Pedagogy, Theory and Method, Theory in the Real World | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Painted Nails: Sexism, Privilege, and Desire

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Craig Martin

Every semester my students execute a deviance project in my “Introduction to Religion” course. I lecture on Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory and the concept of “habitus,” and we talk at length about how social codes are linked with social positions. … Continue reading →

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The Legacy of Structuralism: An Interview with Paul-François Tremlett (Part 3)

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Donovan Schaefer

I interviewed Paul-François Tremlett in early 2012, hoping to draw out some of the links between his 2008 book Lévi-Strauss on Religion: The Structuring Mind (Equinox Publishing) and the relevance of the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss for the contemporary study of … Continue reading →

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