David Wojnarowicz's "Fire in My Belly" is an expression not of hostility to the Christian faith but of a deep, and profoundly agonized, spirituality, argues S. Brent Plate, contra the Catholic League (and 0thers), who successfully lobbied last month to have the piece removed from the National Portrait Gallery's "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" exhibit, ostensibly because of its depiction of Jesus' crucified body encroached upon by ants. "In the midst of the hoopla," says Plate, "is a deeply religious artwork made by an artist struggling with and through the embodied life of the spirit."
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Announcements, events, and opportunities related to topics of interest to TIF readers are posted here. Additionally you may find round-ups of news items and brief commentary on current events.
For a listing of all of the events announcements, click here.
For a listing of announcements regarding books, click here.
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Urban planning in Saudi Arabia
by Jessica PolebaumFrom Jidda, Nicolai Ouroussoff reports on a Saudi governemnt plan to engineer four new urban centers---what the planners are calling "economic cities"---in the Arabian desert, all to be completed by 2030. This massive endeavor is projected to create over a million new jobs and four million new homes. These new cities, the government claims, will pave the way for a less-oil dependent economic future and will open space for a new class of doctors, engineers, and businessmen to flourish, but the cities have also been designed to effect another sort of social change.
December 13, 2010
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Discussing After Pluralism
by Jessica PolebaumLast week, Columbia University's Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life hosted a panel discussion with several contributors to the volume After Pluralism: Reimagining Religious Engagement. Moderated by Craig Calhoun, the panel featured commentary by Courtney Bender, Rosemary Hicks, Janet Jakobsen, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, and J. Terry Todd. Listen to the panel discussion here.
December 16, 2010
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Religion and the United Nations
by Jessica PolebaumThe September issue of CrossCurrents, co-edited by Azza Karam and Matthew Weiner, examines the relationship between religion and the United Nations, offering a wide range of essays exploring scholarly interpretations and reflections from the perspective of both faith based organizations and the UN. View the full issue here (sub. req.).
December 16, 2010
books
The Soul Hypothesis
by Jessica PolebaumAt The Wall Street Journal, Andrew Stark reviews The Soul Hypothesis, a collection of essays edited by Mark Baker and Stewart Goetz.
December 22, 2010
books
The parting of religion and culture
by John D. BoyThe New York Times reviews Olivier Roy's Holy Ignorance, now out in English translation.
December 25, 2010
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Church attendance and identity
by Richard AmesburyIn an essay on Slate, Shankar Vedantam speculates on why Americans tend to overreport attendance at religious services.
January 3, 2011
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Studying Evangelicals
by Jessica PolebaumIn The Chronicle of Higher Education, Timothy Beal reflects on the historic inattention of academic research to popular evangelical trends and highlights some of the most important work performed in this area since the late '80s.
January 3, 2011
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Words, war, and worldviews
by Charles GelmanIn the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Mark Juergensmeyer, former president of the AAR, weaves together a brief history of the organization and an account of the transformation of religious studies over the past hundred years.
January 5, 2011
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CFP: “Empowerment and the Sacred”
by Jessica PolebaumThe Institute for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies (University of Leeds) is issuing a call for papers for "Empowerment and the Sacred," an interdisciplinary conference to be held June 24-26, 2011.
January 5, 2011